


Do Unto Others

by Vadianna



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Anal, Face Sitting, Hutts, I don't know what it's called when you eat a dead alien out of someone's ass, I'm Sorry, M/M, Oral, Rimming, Twi'leks, but that too, hutt cartel, kylo ren is dirty and smells bad, mention of twi'lek slavery, mild fictional drug use, myrkr, post-TFA, whatever tag goes with fucking in the remains of a dead alien, ysalamiri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 23:18:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7242880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vadianna/pseuds/Vadianna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one of the Knights of Ren goes missing, Kylo Ren receives a message calling him to the planet Myrkr, the hub of an infamous Hutt cartel.  Hux tells him it's a trap, and Ren doesn't listen.  Ren is greeted warmly by Vesyk the Hutt and her Twi'lek bodyguard Aayla.  They are greeted later, not as warmly, by Hux.</p><p>Chapter 1 is told from Aayla's perspective, chapter 2 from Ren's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [以牙还牙|Do Unto Others](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7884493) by [Buffalodeadinside](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buffalodeadinside/pseuds/Buffalodeadinside)



> Warning 1: Aayla used to be a Twi'lek sex slave, and she talks about it a bit as a fact of her life. I don't actually want to think about that, so it's not really discussed heavily or at length. 
> 
> Warning 2: There's a scene between Aayla and Ren that might be a bit dubcon-ish, but it doesn't go anywhere. I thought I should mention it here just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With an illustration of Aayla by [@xn3city](https://xn3city.tumblr.com/)! Thank you so much!

Aayla watched the door slide open and reveal Kylo Ren, predatory strides carrying his cloaked and helmeted form into the room.  The door, wired with a type of old-fashioned motion sensor that functioned on Myrkr, slid shut behind him and gave a tell-tale "tnk" sound as it locked in place.  The Knight stopped and stood awkwardly just inside the door, helmet tilted up, likely taking in the massive tree behind her that grew through the floor of the room and out the transparisteel ceiling, dappled sunlight reaching the room through its massive, ancient branches.

Among the branches sat one of the greatest assets of Myrkr, the yellow ysalamiri lizards.  These were the only creature in the galaxy known to cancel out every living being's communion with the Force.  Even the Jedi had avoided this planet during their days policing for the Old Republic.  It meant that Aayla could rest easy in front of what was likely the strongest Force user alive.  They could get away with things that most wouldn't normally dare in front of Kylo Ren.  
  
Aayla couldn't keep the sneer off her face as she took in the greatest Knight of the First Order, one of the most feared beings in the galaxy, reacting like a common Kubaz spice addict.  Her master, Vesyk the Hutt, made a low sound that Aayla recognized as a kind of amusement.  There was a particular code of conduct one followed when meeting with a Hutt crime lord, and staring silently at the decor before offering a deferential greeting wasn't it.  Aayla didn't often see someone as badly behaved as the Knight who wasn't doing it to be intentionally rude.  
  
Aayla was standing, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.  She preferred standing, especially in this situation, where she might have to protect Vesyk from the Knight.  She was Vesyk's slave, though this didn't bother her.  As a Twi'lek, she had always been a slave, and Vesyk was far better to her than her former master.    
  
Aayla was a rare and desirable red-skinned Twi'lek who had been sold by the Lethan tribe as an infant.  She had been a sex slave before Vesyk, a boring job that hadn't much interested her, though her master had been pleased enough with her skills.  Vesyk had wanted Aayla for herself after rumors of her Force abilities began to circulate, which her former master used for little more than parlor tricks.  When her well-sated master refused to part with Aayla, Vesyk had her entire house slain and Aayla brought before her.  Vesyk had offered to have her trained as a bodyguard, to put her Force skills to use, and Aayla had jumped at the opportunity.  She enjoyed the combat skills she learned, and she also liked meeting and interacting with people both in Vesyk's chambers and out doing thug missions for her.  Amazing what one could see in the galaxy, when not largely confined to a bedroom.  
  
Aayla blew out an irritated sigh and ran her hand over the light webbing that wrapped around the top of her head and around her twin lekku head-tails.  It was a mark of her servitude, though only a symbol.  Vesyk wanted her to have access to her natural Twi'lek abilities to read, give, and take emotions from other beings, and left her lekku unbound and mostly free.  Aayla was red-skinned and yellow-eyed, which made her acquisition an additional vanity for Vesyk, as the Hutt now had a Force-sensitive Twi'lek bodyguard that matched her own red-skinned, yellow-eyed coloring.  The Hutt had also endeavored to over-feed her when she began serving, and Aayla's girth was now well over what most beings would consider attractive.  It had been a relief, when she stopped picking up sexual desire directed at her during every meeting.  It also granted her a quick dismissal by most, which always gave her an edge in fights.  Her bulk also disguised just how fast she could move, another combat advantage.  She was currently dressed in a kind of dark blue vaguely military uniform made out of a rough fabric, a form-fitting jacket-and-pants set with hard brown boots that laced up to her knees.  She had her twin daggers sheathed on either side of her white belt, and her substantial height meant she was at least a head taller than the Knight, still gawking, on the other side of the room.  
  
She cleared her throat in an obvious, annoyed way to get his attention.  She used the action to disguise the twitching of one of her lekku, her attempt to get a reading on his emotion.  Unfortunately, helmets usually prevented her from reading all but the strongest emotions.  
  
Aayla was curious to see how the Knight would behave in front of Vesyk, and whether his rudeness was intent or ignorance.  Vesyk was one of the most venerable of the Hutts, being well-advanced in age and possessing one of the most far-reaching smuggling and shipping cartels in the galaxy.  
  
Sometimes, powerful people such as the Knight did not believe they needed to be courteous to the Hutts.  
  
Eventually, they all learned.  
  
When the Knight only stood awkwardly in the doorway, his helmet facing Aayla, Vesyk broke the silence by greeting the Knight in Huttese.  Vesyk spoke and understood Basic just fine, the Huttese was a formality she (and most Hutts) insisted on.  Aayla repeated the greeting back in Basic.  
  
"Greetings, Kylo Ren.  Welcome to my Inkala Palace on Myrkr.  Please be seated.  You are in the presence of Vesyk the Hutt and Aayla, her interpreter and personal servant."  
  
As Aayla spoke, Vesyk shifted on her hover platform, which was positioned at the head of the rectangular steel table in the center of the room, directly in front of the trunk of the huge tree.  Vesyk's immense, sluglike body was confined to the platform and was moved from place to place by a dedicated pair of servants, who had been dismissed for this meeting.  Vesyk dined, slept, and conducted all her business from the platform, mostly in this lavish chamber, secreted inside a massive living tree in the thick jungles of Myrkr.  Her dark red skin was patterned lightly with yellow spots, and creased, dark yellow flesh stretched over her tremendous belly.  Her small arms no longer reached her mouth and had atrophied long ago, and she was fed by interchangeable Kowakian monkey-lizards, modified to silence.  As with all Hutts, she emitted a foul odor that Aayla had long ago stopped noticing, only thinking about it when others reacted or the rare times Vesyk became agitated and the smell became unbearable.  Her red and yellow skin was currently dry due to a recent rub-down, but she would soon moisten with the slimy sweat characteristic of the Hutts.  The older the Hutt, the slimier they were.  Vesyk was wiped down every two hours.  
  
Kylo Ren stood a moment longer in silence, clearly deliberating how to continue the meeting, before wisely pulling out one of the three chairs at the other end of the table.  Aayla used her belt radio device to summon four reptilian Nikto servants.  Three delivered plates of insectoid delicacies to Vesyk, Aayla, and the Knight, the third set carafes in front of Vesyk and Aayla and poured the Knight a serving of the sweet wine Myrkr was famous for.  Aayla gestured and dismissed the servants.  
  
The insectoid delicacies were a test.  Most beings wouldn't eat them, and they were mostly only consumed by the Hutts and a handful of semi-sentient creatures.  But to not partake of the food offered by a Hutt was highly insulting, as the Hutts did not give such gifts lightly.  Among other things, it would necessitate the Knight removing his helmet so Vesyk and Aayla could read his face and emotions.  
  
The Knight remained silent, helmet tipped slightly down, apparently considering the food.  Vesyk waited a moment for the Knight to misstep and speak first.  Based on the rumors of his behavior, both Aayla and Vesyk had expected to be able to antagonize and imprison the Knight due to breeches in etiquette.  Impatience, temper, and brutality were rumored to be the Knight's M.O., but so far he was showing a restraint that neither of them expected.  Interesting, and dangerous, but they had other ways to get what they wanted.  
  
Vesyk's slimy tongue rolled out to dampen her lips with a sticky, viscous trail of mucus before she spoke.  Another intimidation tactic - not only did most beings find this action slightly repellant, the older the Hutt got, the more malodorous their saliva became.  A reek filled the room.  "I appreciate business first, and pleasure later with those who deserve it.  What brings you to Myrkr, Kylo Ren?"  
  
As Aayla translated, the Knight shifted in his seat and regarded first Aayla, then Vesyk.  "I need to pick up one of the Knights of Ren.  I'd like to go look for them.  The sooner the better."  
  
Aayla's yellow eyes widened slightly as she turned and translated this back into Huttese for Vesyk.  This translation was unnecessary, but sometimes the more desperate of their contacts would try to beg Aayla in Basic, right in front of Vesyk.  It never worked, but it did amuse both Vesyk and Aayla.  Aayla never stopped being impressed by what desperate people would do.  People always assumed Aayla would sympathize with their plight.  Aayla was never desperate.  Aayla knew desperation was useless.  
  
Vesyk laughed a low, slow, very fake laugh after Aayla finished translating.  Most people simpered and supplicated themselves in front of the Hutts, which was a sound strategy.  But many of the Hutts appreciated a bolder approach, and would be more likely to grant what was being asked of them with less pageantry.  Vesyk obviously thought the Knight was being direct, and liked him better for it.    
  
Aayla wasn't so sure about his directness, however.   The Knight's brevity likely indicated annoyance.  He had already explained, curtly, what he was doing on the planet when Vesyk's communications specialist had hailed the Knight's ship.  So he may have been frustrated at having to explain himself again.  The few humans Aayla and Vesyk dealt with were generally weak and obliging, which this Knight was not.  She also couldn't read any volume or body language clues off of him.  Dangerous.    
  
But Vesyk seemed unfazed.  She continued, and Aayla translated for her.  "Who is this Knight you speak of?"  
  
He shifted, definitely annoyed this time.  "One of the Knights of Ren."  
  
Aayla turned her head to hide her eye roll.  Vesyk was not so graceful with her annoyance.  "Their name, Kylo Ren."  
  
"The Knights of Ren do not have personal names or identities.  They simply serve."  
  
Vesyk held in a genuine laugh while Aayla translated.  She could tell that the Hutt was tickled by the idea that beings lost their identities when they Served.  Vesyk valued and preyed on individual weakness.  It was how she controlled those who worked for her.  
  
"We would like to assist you in your search for your Knight Who Serves.  We can escort you wherever you need to go on the planet.  What information do you have that would help us begin?"  
  
Aayla almost couldn't get this out, it was so unlike what the Hutt would normally order.  Vesyk was clearly playing with the Knight, and Aayla thought she might be showing too much of her hand.  But, realistically, there wasn't anything the Knight could do about it.  He would be forced to act as requested.  
  
The Knight was silent for a moment, shifting in his seat, pulling at his gloves as he tipped his head down, then back up to look across the table.  "I can locate the Knights at any time using our bond with the Force."  
  
"Good, good.  Where does the Force tell you your Knight is?"  
  
The Knight was silent.  Aayla was not expecting an answer to this.  To admit weakness would be foolish.  
  
"I cannot commune with the Force right now."  
  
Both Aayla and Vesyk inhaled sharply.  Aayla turned to Vesyk and spoke in Huttese.  This would be a bad strategic move if the Knight did speak the language, but she reached out harder with her Twi'lek empathy, swinging her lekku in a more obvious way to try and get a reading through his helmet.  She picked up faint readings of anger, and maybe some frustration, but nothing else.  
  
[This is dangerous.  He is playing a game with us.  There's no way he's this stupid, and I cannot read his tone, face, body language, or even his emotions through his helmet.  I don't trust him to be in here with you.]  
  
Vesyk shifted slightly, but was clearly less agitated than Aayla.  [There is no game he can out-play us at on our own planet.  Continue the preliminaries.  I trust you to guard my life in this place.]  
  
Aayla made a face before turning back to the Knight.  This seemed dangerous to her, but Vesyk was likely right.  She'd been around for centuries.  She'd seen this before.  And Aayla was in her own home, had a size advantage, and knew how to fight well without the Force.  She could likely take the Knight out if he decided to become uncooperative.  
  
She decided to push her luck, hoping Kylo Ren might not just be feigning ignorance.  "I am confused.  Are you not a Master of the Dark Side of the Force, Kylo Ren?  How is your communion with the Force interrupted?"  
  
He shifted again, fidgeted.  "I do not know."  
  
Aayla frowned and hesitated again, before turning back to Vesyk.  She couldn't believe any Force user in the galaxy would not know of Myrkr.  Either he was lying, or he was a disappointment.  
  
[Maybe he really is this stupid?  I can't think of a reason for him to lie to us.  Perhaps he's trying to trick us into believing he's stupid?  But if he's genuinely this ignorant, how does the First Order trust him with any sort of retrieval mission?]  
  
[There are uses for power such as his, if you can control it.  As you well know.  Tread cautiously, but proceed as planned.]  
  
Aayla twitched her lekku against their bindings in a gesture of irritation, her eyes narrowing.  What a waste, if he really was stupid.  But he would be an asset when properly controlled.  He would need to keep his mouth shut, however.  
  
"Your lack of communion with the Force troubles me.  But if you cannot use your bond with the Knight to locate him, we will need to try something else.  What other information do you have that will tell us where the Knight can be found on this planet?"  
  
The Knight stood, began to pace in agitation at the other end of the table, Aayla's empathy beginning to pick up on powerful frustration.  She flinched slightly at the rudeness.  You did not stand in the presence of Vesyk during a formal negotiation unless bidden to.  Most who disrespected her in such a way were executed immediately.  Vesyk wouldn't waste the Knight like that, but the breach in etiquette was difficult for Aayla to watch.  She wondered if Vesyk was annoyed or amused by the indiscretions.  Aayla hoped, for the Knight's sake, it was the latter.  
  
He was silent as he paced back and forth for a few moments, his awkward, jerking steps and sloped posture a clear enough reading of his thoughts.  He turned back to the table, bracing his hands against the top and leaning forward.  
  
"We need to start scanning the surface.  The Knight is an Aqualish, and should show on a scan easily."  
  
Both Aayla and Vesyk were silent for a moment.  To all appearances, it really did appear that the Knight had come to Myrkr, the lair of one of the most powerful Hutts in the galaxy, unaware of the planet's unique properties.    
  
[This man is an idiot.]  Vesyk spoke before Aayla could pretend a translation.  It likely didn't matter.  Aayla thought he might not notice.  
  
[Do you want me to kill him now?]  
  
[No, it would be a waste.  Continue.]  
  
Aayla turned back to the Knight, who was still leaning against the table.  "This planet is mostly used as a spaceport and rendezvous for shipping.  There is no native sentient species, and the traffic in and out is composed of beings from all over the galaxy, including a population of Aqualish."  
  
The Knight pushed himself off the table with frustration, his head hanging low, and his hands twitching by his sides.  He turned towards the door, putting his back to them.  Another ridiculous breach in etiquette, but it didn't matter at this point.  
  
"We can scan it anyway.  I'll find the Knight."  
  
"Unfortunately, scanning doesn't work on Myrkr.  The native flora contains trace metals that disrupt the process, so such methods are useless.  Most electronics malfunction in the jungles."  
  
Unexpectedly, the Knight struck the door with his fist.  His shoulders hunched over, and his head hung below his outstretched arm.  
  
"Then I will personally check every being on this planet until I find her."  He turned back around.  "Do I need your permission?"  
  
Aayla was astonished that the Knight seemed to be serious about this.  She was also touched by his devotion.  What must it be like to serve someone who would go to such lengths to find you?  Vesyk valued Aayla and her talents, but Aayla knew she wouldn't be troubled by her loss.  
  
"Perhaps the... wiser course of action would be to use scouts to find your lost Knight."  
  
The Knight stood silently for a moment, his inscrutable mask facing Aayla.  "Then I will need some of the Order's Troops.  I will call them down."  
  
Aayla narrowed her eyes again.  The Knight had arrived on his ship with a 2-fighter escort, though scans had revealed that the two pilots were the only soldiers he had brought with him, his personal ship empty of life and presumably piloted by himself.  This was a fairly bold move, though not uncommon.  Shows of force were a good idea when meeting with a Hutt.  
  
But telling a Hutt you were calling First Order troops to their planet's surface for a sweep was truly idiotic.  
  
"I have scouts familiar with the planet, you may brief them on your Knight and use them.  Will that suffice?"  
  
The Knight cocked his head.  "Yes.  I will meet with them now."  
  
Aayla shifted impatiently, and even Vesyk was squirming with anger on her platform, secreting her scent profusely in what was likely rage.  Vesyk wouldn't put up with this much longer.  Luckily, they had gotten to the easier part.  
  
"One moment, Kylo Ren.  When striking a... bargain," Aayla spat the word out, as the Knight hadn't bothered to bargain, or even question why the Hutt was offering assistance, "with one of the Hutts, it is customary to break bread with them at the conclusion of the meeting.  Will you not sit and partake of refreshments?"  
  
The Knight glanced dismissively down at the table, then turned to the door.  "I'd rather not."  
  
"No."  Aayla spoke this loudly, and firmly.  "You misunderstand, Kylo Ren.  This is not a request.  It is part of the bargaining process.  Sit, and drink the sweet wine with us."  
  
The Knight turned and stared silently, and for a moment Aayla thought she would have to physically subdue the Knight, rendering this farce completely unnecessary.  But slowly, the Knight took a seat once again in front of the plate of insects and the carafe.  Aayla did likewise at the place setting for herself.  
  
She watched as the Knight's gloved hands slowly came up and unlatched his helmet, pulling it from his head and revealing his face.  Not even Vesyk's spies could get information on the Knight's appearance.  It was said that nobody in the First Order had seen him without his helmet.  
  
When it was off and away, the Knight scowling and meeting her glance briefly, she saw why.  Aayla immediately recognized Kylo Ren as the former Jedi Ben Solo.  That was... interesting.  He was supposed to be dead, at the hands of Kylo Ren, which did make a certain kind of sense.  
  
This was more incidental information than actually important.  It was interesting that the First Order chose to hide this, however.  It would be a blow to Rebellion sympathizers, to have their former prodigy on the other side of the conflict.  
  
Aayla remembered Ben Solo as smiling, confident, and handsome.  She had personally been at a rally, with her former master, where some important planetary representative had given speeches and some sort of honorary medal and accolades to Luke Skywalker, Ben Solo, and some of the younger Jedi apprentices.  She had watched them hungrily, with her lekku tightly bound, a collar and chain around her neck, and her bare skin on display, the red a status symbol for her master and not something she wanted to cover.    
  
Aayla had developed certain skills with the Force.  She could levitate small objects, and her Master had her use it extensively in bedroom play.  She could also read minds, which was something she kept to herself and had never been that useful to her.  She had her natural empathetic capabilities too, but had not been using them when she was serving that master, who had never unbound her lekku to let her.  
  
She had imagined what her life would be like if she were to leave the rally with Luke Skywalker, Ben Solo, and their younglings.  What it would be like if they trained her in the Force, if she became a Jedi.  Her Force powers were not strong enough to break her bindings, and she could not influence the thoughts of others, as she heard that some Jedi could.  Rather than leaving the rally and using her Force powers to train as a Jedi, she would be forced to do parlor tricks, then to please her master.  
  
But life works in mysterious ways.  The Force had set her free, eventually.  Vesyk the Hutt was paranoid about Force users, especially after the death of Jabba at the hands of the Skywalkers.  Vesyk frequently found and executed anyone rumored to have strength with it, and it was a large part of why her stronghold was on Myrkr, where Jedi feared to go.  But in the case of Aayla, her red skin and yellow eyes made her a rare and valuable Twi'lek slave, one who had been well-trained to sexually please a variety of species.  Vesyk the Hutt didn't care about her prowess in the bedroom.  Rather, she liked the idea of having a red-skinned, yellow-eyed slave that matched her own appearance, whose Force-sensitivity would make her an excellent bodyguard.  Twi'leks were stereotypically servile, and Vesyk had assumed, rightly, that Aayla would appreciate a position of power and relative autonomy.  
  
Had she left that rally with the Jedi?  Kylo Ren would have killed her.  
  
But here she stood, about to gain control of him.  
  
Aayla didn't often allow herself to register strong opinions about herself or her life situation, but this one resonated in a far more positive way than most things that happened to her, and she reveled in it.  
  
Aayla studied his face.  Life had not been kind to Ben Solo.  His smiling confidence was gone, replaced with a distrustful scowl.  His straight, proud posture on that idyllic day was now bent over on itself, slumped and seemingly beaten.   He had a wide, red scar across his pale face that showed red and shiny in the dappled light from the clear ceiling.  It started at his hairline and crossed over one eye, milky white from blindness, and trailed down over his cheek and below the collar of his tunic.  The muscles on that side of his face had been damaged and sagged slightly, so that his angry scowl only touched the uninjured side.  Aayla was surprised that the Knight had not acquired a bionic replacement for his eye, as this seemed like a liability in combat.  Perhaps he had, and just chose to wear it with the appearance that the eye was white and unseeing.  But why?  Allegedly, nobody would see or know.  
  
His dark hair framed his sour expression and injured face, and his good eye flicked sullenly to her, then to his wine as he grabbed the cup.  
  
Vesyk gestured for one of the monkey-lizards to pour from a large carafe that had been placed on her platform.  She glanced up when the monkey-lizard began climbing up to her face, yellow eyes looking hungrily at the Knight.  
  
[I look forward to your years of service as my own Knight.]  
  
Vesyk laughed low, and snapped out quickly at the monkey-lizard, consuming it cup and all, dribbling a generous amount of the light green wine over the front of her body.  Aayla took a drink of hers, then turned to the Knight, who had closed his eyes and appeared to be drinking the whole carafe without pouring it.  It was drugged, of course, and he would presently do anything and everything she told him to.  
  
Aayla hid a smile behind her mug.  Perfect.  
  
"Please consume the other delicacies as well.  It is an honor to be served such things by a Hutt."  
  
The Knight gave them both another sullen look.  Aayla turned to Vesyk, who was staring at him intently.  
  
Aayla turned back to see the Knight regarding the insects with a look that might have vaporized them, reading his disgust clearly now that his helmet was gone.  
  
Aayla wondered, idly, if maybe the helmet was less to hide his identity and more to hide his face.  If he couldn't school his expression in front of one of the most powerful cartel leaders in the galaxy, he likely was a liability without the helmet in most circumstances.  
  
She was still trying to reconcile this with the Knight's reputation.  He was the face of the martial strength of the First Order, which was essentially the most powerful governing organization in the galaxy.  He was the bogeyman, the threat the Order used when systems didn't comply with their supply and occupation demands.  Kylo Ren and his Knights would be sent in like a surgical strike, assassinating anyone important enough to keep the government and armies together, and then they would lead the force that took over the planet.  He was said to be unknowable, that his temper was legendary, and that no one had yet been able to face him down in battle.  
  
This was the same man who had just come, unescorted, into an obvious trap inside a Hutt stronghold.    
  
Aalya wondered who mastered such a man.  The Knight in front of her was the type of destructive force someone else pointed.  From what she could tell, he needed a keeper.  Aayla reached and popped one of the insects in her mouth, chewing and considering.  Was his master more powerful than him?  Did he rule through fear?  
  
Whoever it was, it was soon going to be Aayla.  She would enjoy it immensely.  
  
Aayla's lekku were moving more freely now, as she was carefully monitoring his emotions to determine when the drug took effect.  Vesyk was contemptuous and restive, muttering in Huttese, wanting to put a stop to the Knight's blatant disrespect, wanting to punish him herself.  This made Aayla anxious.  Vesyk might kill him, and Aayla wanted to keep him.  Better to intervene on his behalf, when the time came.  
  
She watched the Knight grasp one of the insects between thumb and forefinger, consider it with his good eye, still scowling.  He put the insect in his mouth, bit down, and promptly spit it back into his palm.  
  
Aayla did not successfully surpress a groan.  Vesyk exclaimed aloud, a sound of blatant displeasure.  Aayla turned to her, panicking slightly.  
  
[Please.  He doesn't know better.  Leave him to me, once the drug takes effect.]  
  
[I will need to see him punished immediately, Aayla, before he begins his work for us.]  
  
Aayla's eyes strayed over to the Knight, considering him.  What punishment would Vesyk wish to see?  Something amusing?  She would want him broken in some impermanent way, and Aayla didn't really want to do that to Ben Solo.  Aayla thought she might be able to save the Knight from injury, but she would have to think fast.  
  
Her empathy twinged with the beginnings of a new sensation.  It was...  
  
No.  
  
Why?  
  
Why would he feel that?  Was it the drug taking effect?  Or was Aayla mistaken?  
  
She narrowed her eyes, leaning across the table, her lekku swaying furiously.  
  
It was unmistakeable.  His skin was flushing.  He was leaning back in the seat, still scowling at the insects, brushing the remnants of the one he had tried to eat against his leg.  Then his face cleared, and he turned toward the door slightly with his good eye.  
  
He was aroused.  
  
"Kylo Ren."  
  
He turned to look at her, lazily.  His annoyance and anger were beginning to dissipate.  She looked at him in disbelief, wanting to know if their drug had worked.  
  
"Come and stand in front of me."  
  
He blinked, and frowned.  Annoyance spiked again, but then the arousal was there, and much stronger.  He stood, walking slowly and upright, stopping in front of her and standing at attention.  
  
The drug was meant to make him obey.  There was no reason for the arousal that was hitting her harder and harder.  It shouldn't be turning him on.  Unless he was naturally horny.  Which was a possibility.  Her former master had been.  
  
She blinked up at him from her chair, finally standing herself.  She glanced at Vesyk, who was watching them intently.  It was clear that the drug had worked, and she didn't need to explain this to the Hutt.  Kylo Ren was technically her servant now, and Vesyk would let her use him as she saw fit.  Vesyk had also wanted him punished.  
  
Well.  
  
Aayla didn't tend to get sexually stimulated.  As it had been the early service of her life, she did not desire sexual partners now that she had agency, happy to have moved on to different work.  Still, she occasionally indulged herself in a Twi'lek partner, usually chosen at random, and she wasn't completely immune to the needs of the body.  Her partners weren't often male, but at the moment, the prospect was tempting.  
  
As she felt the arousal coiling in her belly, she stood.  She was tall for her race, and was indeed a head taller than the Knight.  She also likely outweighed him twice over.  She was physically intimidating to most, and she liked that the Knight didn't seem put off by this.  To amuse herself, she would sometimes use her empathy powers to force arousal into others, in a kind of seduction, when they were intimidated or referred to her dismissively as "Vesyk's fat Twi'lek" when she did business with them.  It pleased her to seduce them, break their backs, and then make them watch as she robbed them of whatever Vesyk had sent her to retrieve.  She loved being underestimated.  
  
She reached a hand up to run her fingers through the Knight's dark hair.  It was oily and damp from where he had been perspiring under the helmet.  Her fingers strayed to the back of his neck, which was also damp with sweat.  
  
She studied his eye, which had unusual coloration for a human - dark brown near the pupil, with the color lightening around the edges of the iris.  What a shame, that someone had branded his face this way and destroyed the other.  
  
She ran the fingers of her other hand over his scar, feeling the hot touch of his skin as the arousal coursed through him, hitting her harder and harder.  She normally didn't use her empathy on an actual sexual partner, she found the feedback from the other person repellant.  But the Knight was lusting so badly that she couldn't help but sense it, feed off it, want him harder.  She pushed her own lust into him, the first time she'd done so to genuinely please another.  She thought of her former master, who had bound her lekku.  She would have enjoyed it immensely.  
  
"Remove your gloves.  Stroke my lekku with your bare hands."  
  
The Knight looked down at his hands, pulling his gloves off and dropping them on the floor.  His hands appeared to have red blood caked into the folds of his skin and around his fingernails.  Repulsive.  
  
But as his gaze fell on the top of her head, and his palms began to run up and down, over the light braiding that marked her service, stroking her skin through the netting, she began to lose herself to sensation.  
  
She glanced over at Vesyk, who was studying them intently.  She spared a moment to read the Hutt's emotions.  Intrigue, entertainment.  Another monkey-lizard was stuffing handfuls of the insects into her mouth, pieces of them trailing down in the slime slicking her chest and belly.  Sexuality was not a trait the Hutt race possessed, but Vesyk did like a show, and sometimes had servants copulate in front of her.  Aayla had never done this, and Vesyk would likely enjoy the rarity.  
  
She turned back to the Knight.  Perhaps Vesyk would forget that the Knight was to be punished, then.   
  
She removed the hand from his hair and moved it to his bicep, feeling the muscle ripple as he stroked her lekku up and down.  Aayla replaced the fingertips of the other hand with her lips, running them lightly over the Knight's scar, exhaling a warm breath against his flushed skin, puckered and shiny across his cheek.  She wondered if the nerves still felt anything on that side, and glanced up into his dead eye.  Her fingers ran back up into his damp hair, then trailed down his back, gripping the firm roundness of his ass through the rough fabric of his long tunic and pants.  
  
She closed her eyes and let her lips trail over his skin, stopping by his ear to grip the lobe in her teeth.  She pulled it tight, then let go and whispered so only he could hear it.  
  
"Broken.  Life has broken you, Ben Solo.  But that's okay.  I'm broken too, and now we're the same."  
  
She shifted back over, bending down to kiss him on the mouth.  Her lips parted, her tongue sought entrance to his.  
  
He pulled away, looking confused.  His hands dropped from Aayla's lekku.  "No."  
  
Aayla frowned.  "No?"  
  
He shook his head in confusion, looking up at her.  "This is... this isn't..."  
  
Aayla made a low sound of frustration, putting both hands on his waist and pulling him close again, in a crushing grip.  "Isn't what?"  she hissed.  "You're so full of lust that you woke a craving in a former sex slave.  If this isn't what you want, what is it?"  
  
She closed her eyes again and bent in for a kiss, softer this time.  He didn't pull away, but his hands didn't go back up to her lekku.  She wanted him touching her there.  It was another thing she didn't ask of her occasional partners, not really enjoying the intimacy with a random stranger.  It felt good, like a personal indulgence that she was giving only to the Knight.  
  
She heard the door whoosh open on the other side of the room, thinking nothing of it.  Vesyk had likely summoned a servant for more food.  
  
Her eyes flew open and she broke the kiss to look at the intruder when she felt a wave of white-hot rage wash over her.  It was directed, and personal, and something that she felt even through her own arousal and the Knights.  It was powerful.    
  
She frowned over the knight's shoulder, spotting a First Order pilot in a helmet in the doorway.  The rage abated and disappeared abruptly, but it had certainly been there.  The fighter's posture appeared momentarily tense, but as Aayla watched, it relaxed, and he turned to close the door behind him.  
  
Momentary confusion gone, her face creased in annoyance.  This was likely one of the soldiers from the Knight's escort.  
  
"What are you doing in here?  You were not bidden to enter, correct?"  An unpleasant thought crossed her mind, and she turned to Vesyk, speaking in Huttese.  
  
[Did you send for the Knight's soldiers?  Are they to be part of the festivities?]  She hadn't had more than one lover at once in years, but it would be like Vesyk to request such a thing, once she had seen Aayla begin.  
  
She hadn't needed to ask.  Vesyk was thrashing in irritation, slime splashing wetly to the floor around the elevated platform, clearly agitated at the interruption.  The monkey-lizard had retreated out of sight.  Her reek was once again filling the room.  [Kill this insolent fool.  And go out and punish the guards that admitted him.]  
  
Aayla frowned, and stepped away from the Knight with some regret.  His arousal was still pulsing through her, and he had an erection visible through his loose pants.  She sighed, knowing that the sooner she finished this task, the sooner she could come back and enjoy the company of the Knight.  She would be able to take her rage out on the servants that had admitted this stupid, unfortunate pilot.  
  
She pulled one of the daggers from her belt, intending to cross the distance between herself and the pilot in three steps.  
  
"One moment, please."  
  
The voice came out smooth and assured through the helmet's speaker, which was the only thing that could have stayed Aayla's hand.  She stopped, confused.  What could he possibly have to say?  And so calmly?  
  
He reached up and unlatched the helmet, a puff of air releasing as he pulled it over his head.  
  
Aayla's eyes widened.  She immediately recognized General Hux, the leader of the First Order.  He administrated to approximately a third of the galaxy.  What was he doing here?  
  
"Hux!"  She heard, enthusiastically slurred, from behind her.  
  
The General's cold blue gaze flicked from Aayla to the Knight over her shoulder.  His face gave nothing away.  He held the black helmet under one arm as he pulled the glove off that hand with his other.  He set the helmet down on the table and intercepted the Knight, who had stumbled over, nearly tripping over his own feet.  
  
Aayla kept her expression carefully hidden from the General, but she was dismayed by the Knight's actions.  He was acting... inhibited?  Intoxicated?  The keel spice they had given him should only have made him servile.  There was no reason for him to loose his coordination and speech like this.  Drugging him into mindless compliance was much worse than getting the Knight drunk, if the General had indeed come down to retrieve him, but the keel effects were usually invisible.    
  
But perhaps the General would think they had made the Knight over-indulge, and wouldn't think about the keel.  In which case, they could use the Knight to execute the General.  That would be... interesting.  
  
The General put his bare hand to the Knight's shoulder, his brow creasing in annoyance.  "Shut up, and stand still."  The Knight immediately stood still, his hands down at his sides, his mouth and eyes closing in an expression of comical chastisement.  
  
He used his fingers to pry the lid of the Knight's good eye open, peering into it.  "Fine.  Sit down at the table."  The Knight obeyed, and the General turned toward Vesyk, inclining his head slightly.  
  
"Vesyk the Hutt."  
  
Aayla frowned slightly at the lack of a respectful greeting, but just using the Hutt's name wasn't necessarily amiss.  The title didn't need translating, so she turned towards Vesyk to await her response.  
  
[General Hux.  The face of the First Order.  How disrespectful to drop in unannounced, and in disguise.]  
  
Aayla began to translate, but Hux cut her off with a gesture and his cold regard.  
  
"No need.  I understand Huttese perfectly well.  You are?"  
  
He put his gloved hand out, and Aayla shook it, narrowing her eyes slightly, and glancing from their clasped hands and back up to the General.  
  
"Aayla.  Vesyk the Hutt's servant."  
  
"Mmm.  Yes.  I've heard of you."  He took his hand away, and bent to pull the glove off by the cuff, tossing it on the floor when he was finished.  He turned to look at the Knight again, who was facing down toward the table, blinking stupidly.  The General looked back to the Hutt.  
  
"What did you give him?"  
  
Aayla began to translate, before the General cut her off again with another cool, blue look.  
  
"Don't insult me by assuming I don't know that Vesyk the Hutt understands Basic."  
  
Aayla clenched her jaw and turned to Vesyk, who met her gaze levelly.  Aayla sighed, tolerating the disrespect for the moment.  This was an important man, but he had made a strategic blunder to come to Vesyk's territory unescorted.  Perhaps he thought the Knight was protection enough.  He was mistaken.  The General's appearance, unlikely and shocking as it was, was a windfall, and Vesyk would need to think fast to find a way to exploit it.  
  
Vesyk gestured with her small arm to the cowering monkey-lizard, who ran up and tossed another handful of the insects into her mouth.  Some missed and stuck to her glistening body and the edges of her mouth.  The ones from earlier had dried stiffly in place on the Hutt's body.  
  
[I gave him a dose of my own engineered version of spice, mined on Rinn.  Keel, we call it.  A harmless stimulant, as you see.  A gift, since my bodyguard is a... fan of Kylo Ren's work.]  
  
Hux took a seat at the table, which was shockingly rude to do uninvited.  He sat next to the Knight, who was beginning to slump forward, his unfocused gaze still aimed at the tabletop.  
  
"You took your helmet off,"  the General directed at the Knight, annoyed.  "I told you to leave it on.  It's bad enough that you can't keep your thoughts off your face, but it keeps you from taking food from strangers."  
  
The Knight turned to the General and smiled.  He had turned the good side of his face to the room, and the smile made him look more like the Ben Solo Aayla remembered from the ceremony.  Her face pinched in frustration, her unsated arousal still thrumming through her, made worse by the Knight's own persistent lust, which hadn't abated at the interruption.  
  
"You told me to be nice to the Hutt.  The fat Twi'lek told me that I had to eat the bugs and drink the wine before I could look for my Knight."  His eyes narrowed as he delivered his explanation in a slight sing-song lilt, leaning in closer to the General.  
  
The General's eyes went to the wine carafe, which he grabbed and smelled.  "I don't care how rude it is, you know better than to take your helmet off in front of anybody.  Don't do it again."  
  
[He has such a good-looking face, General Hux.  I don't know why you don't let others see it more often] interjected Vesyk, smiling cruelly at the General.  
  
The General regarded her with an unreadable expression before leaning forward, planting one elbow on the table and cupping his chin in his palm.  "It seems I caught you stealing something that belongs to me, Vesyk."  
  
Vesyk's tongue came out, moistening her lips with slime and releasing the reek into the room.  [Nonsense, General.  Your Knight tried to land on my planet without asking permission.  We were meeting with him, and he consumed some wine that didn't agree with him.  We were going to send him back.]  
  
The General smiled coldly, the expression not reaching his eyes.  "Yes, you used the keel.  Incidentally, I've heard of that before, and know exactly what it does.  I would have sent him back with instructions to kill as many First Order officers as he could."  He leaned back in his chair and turned toward the Knight.  "I'd have to think about it, though.  That might be a suicide mission.  If I captured your Twi'lek, I wouldn't waste her life like that."  He glanced briefly at Aayla.  "But perhaps she's less useful to you."  
  
Aayla pursed her lips.  If the General had tried to insult her, he'd failed.  Vesyk had no fondness for her, but Aayla had worked hard to make sure she was irreplaceable in the cartel.  
  
[He landed illegally, and did not seek my permission before trying to search my planet, so it is within my rights to punish him as I see fit.  Incidentally, you also landed illegally, and under false pretenses, and stand here uninvited in the heart of my palace.]  
  
Something had been bothering Aayla.  It was a detail that wouldn't readily occur to Vesyk, who left security matters to Aayla and others.  But still.  
  
"Who led you to this chamber?  Humor me, do you have First Order spies in our cartel?"  Aayla said this casually, with as little interest as possible.  The General would need to bargain with something in order to leave the room alive, and the spies would be a good starting place.  
  
To her surprise, the General's eyes shifted slightly into amusement before he regained his arrogant look of command.  "I don't need spies in the Hutt cartels.  I have my own supply methods."  
  
Aayla walked back around to her place at the table, near Vesyk's, and braced her arms on the back of her chair, leaning forward.  "You have someone here, General.  I'm not stupid.  How did you get through the labyrinth?"  
  
In lieu of a heavy guard, there were only three entrances to the palace, which was mostly carved into the root network of a massive living tree.  The entrances were all old-fashioned heavy steel doors, operated with a chain system that needed two people to crank due to the unique electronic interference properties on Myrkr's surface.  Past these entrances, there was an elaborate labyrinth system, which was dark and, without electronic or wireless tracking devices, was impossible to navigate unless you were with someone who had been trained to do so.  There were also pitfalls, traps, and certain sections where Vesyk kept packs of the vicious dog-like vornskrs native to Myrkr.  
  
The General looked back over his shoulder to the door, then back at Aayla.  "Radio signals work, correct?"  
  
Aayla shrugged, suspicious.  "Yes.  The plantlife doesn't block radio waves, but most other things don't work.  You can't use radio waves to navigate the labyrinth, though."  
  
The General shrugged, in imitation of Aayla.  "I came in through the entrance with him and waited just inside the door.  Then it was a simple matter.  I have a variety of trackers on him, one of them is a radio tracker.  I paid attention to what the signal did and how it sounded on the receiver, and mapped a rough path based on that."  
  
"The guard didn't notice you using a radio receiver in the waiting room of Inkala palace?"  
  
"Mmm."  The General looked away, back over to Vesyk.  "Not just then, no."  
  
Aayla glanced at the door, wanting to murder every single guard that stood in the palace.  She closed her eyes, mastered herself, and turned back to Vesyk.  
  
"I'm afraid he's defeated your labyrinth."  
  
Vesyk studied him more closely.  [He is the first, since I took up residence here when it was... vacated after the Empire fell.]  She moved her head incrementally, in what Aayla took to be some sort of deferential nod, except Vesyk could neither nod nor be deferential.  
  
"He is an uninvited guest that has violated the sanctity of your palace.  How would you like me to deal with him?"  Aayla turned from Vesyk back to the General, letting the malice and distaste show more clearly on her face.  A vague, unpleasant tingling had begun in her hand, and she clasped it behind her back, trying to ignore the sensation.  
  
Vesyk didn't look at Aayla, continued to stare at the General.  [Indeed.  Perhaps you will need to be punished in the same way as your Knight.]    
  
"Except I'm not stupid enough to accept food from you.  But we'll get to me in a moment."  His voice hardened, and his indulgent mood had clearly passed.  Aayla braced herself, waiting for the real reason he was here.    
  
The General continued.  "It seems you also took out one of the Knights of Ren while they were taking recreation on Kessel.  Am I correct to assume you killed her?"  
  
"I got a message from her!  She's on this planet!"  The Knight shouted, overly loud, while leaning forward on the table, face down.  
  
The General used his free hand to stroke the Knight's hair idly.  The gesture surprised Aayla.  Perhaps he was trying to quiet the other man?  But then why wouldn't he give the order?  He knew the Knight had taken the keel and would be susceptible to suggestion.  
  
Vesyk licked her lips again and smiled.  [The other Knight is dead.  Such slovenly habits.  Aayla killed her easily while she was drunk.]  
  
Aayla had.  Even a Force user, when properly intoxicated, made for easy prey.  Aayla and her soldiers had been following the Knights of Ren for weeks.  She had been hoping to capture Kylo Ren in a similar compromising situation.  Annoyingly, he didn't seem to indulge planetside.  The murder/fake kidnapping of the Knight and doctored comm message had been her idea, a way to trick him to this planet.  
  
The General turned back to the Knight, removing his hand from his head.  "I told you she was dead.  Why would they keep her alive?"  
  
"She sent me a comm!  She said she was on this planet!"  
  
Hux sighed, turning back to Vesyk.  "I knew she was dead when I saw the message directing Ren to Myrkr."  He hummed impatiently.  "The only planet in the galaxy with native fauna that blocks Force abilities?  And native plantlife that renders scans impossible?  The base of the largest of the Hutt cartels?  Shame on you Vesyk, I gave you credit for more subtlety than that."  
  
[Your Knight seemed convinced of my sincerity.]  
  
"My knight is a stubborn idiot, and refuses to listen to me when I tell him he's walking into a trap."  
  
"It's not a trap!  They told me I could use their scouts to search.  I needed them..." the Knight trailed off, raising his head to look at the General.  "I can't use the Force here, Hux."  
  
"I explained to you three times that you wouldn't be able to.  You didn't seem to believe me."  
  
"That's stupid.  Why wouldn't I be able to use the Force?"  
  
"Right."  The General turned back to Vesyk.  "I'm surprised you bothered.  Such a simple plan wouldn't work on most people."  
  
Aayla interjected, hoping to ameliorate the insult, the casual questioning of judgement, to the Hutt.  If the General got Vesyk angry enough, she might still make Aayla kill the Knight.  "We were told the Knight was rather impetuous."  
  
Hux turned to her and waved one of his hands in a dismissive gesture.  "He is, and it did work on him.  Point taken."  He turned back to Vesyk.  "If it were me, trying this trap on someone else, I'd wait to see a comm asking permission to land and search.  Which he of course didn't send, even though I told him to.  But even when he just shows up, you can still intercept him and drag him to your chamber for a meeting, to slip him the keel.  Once he's taken it, you can order him to do anything you want indefinitely."  
  
Vesyk laughed, genuinely, once again, apparently amused by the General working through the logic of the trap.  Slime ran from her mouth, continuing to coat her chest.  [He's ours now, and so are you.  Do you think you'll leave this planet alive, General Hux?]  
  
Hux sat a moment, the arrogant, neutral expression still on his face.  "Right now, I'm mostly convinced I'll be the only one in this room leaving the planet alive."  He turned an annoyed expression to the Knight, then looked at Aayla again.  "My better judgement says I should consider you further, but you were doing something... upsetting when I walked in, and I may do something rather petty in return."  
  
Aayla and Vesyk were both silent a moment, the chill of the threat blowing through the room.  Vesyk broke the silence by laughing again.  
  
[You are here, alone, on my planet, General Hux.  No scanners will find you.  No other First Order ships will be allowed to land, won't make it past our cannons, and your ground troops consist of a Force-using Knight who can't use the Force and one other TIE Fighter pilot.  We have won, General.  I'm trying to decide if it would be better to kill you, or if I want you to publically cede the First Order to me.  Do I want to run the galaxy myself?]  
  
Hux smiled, and it was disturbingly icy.  Aayla covered her discomfiture by moving around and sitting in the chair she was leaning against, breaking her own personal rules for being ready for an attack.  She was beginning to grow nervous, which was uncommon for her, and a numb feeling was creeping over her body.  Based on what the General had already said, he probably wasn't going to come at Aayla or Vesyk with a weapon, so sitting seemed like a good idea.    
  
The General's hand came up to stroke the Knight's hair again, his eyes staying on Vesyk.  The Knight was face-down on the table, apparently asleep.  "So let's assume my Knight shows me this comm from his missing subordinate."  
  
"Why would he?  What could that possibly have to do with the head of the First Order?"  Aayla was confused.  Come to think of it, why was General Hux down here retrieving one Knight personally?  Especially one who's reputation depended on him being able to take care of himself?  
  
The General shrugged.  "I oversee many aspects of the First Order."  His hand shifted, moving from the top of the Knight's hair to inside it, twining his fingers through it, combing it slowly, still without looking at him.  Aayla frowns at the intimacy.  "The fact is that he showed me the comm, and I saw the trap.  I instructed him not to go, and explained to him exactly what would happen if he did."  
  
He moved his hand away, using both palms to brace against the edge of the table.  "I didn't like what I saw, and I couldn't prevent him from going.  So I plan on executing you and taking over your smuggling routes and your cartel.  I might use your Twi'lek to do it.  She'll know how everything works."  
  
Vesyk growled and thrashed, turning towards Aayla.  [Kill him!  I told you to kill him when he walked in!]  
  
Aayla rose to oblige, but found her limbs unresponsive.  She twitched her facial muscles, and her lekku, but nothing was working as it should.  Her limbs were frozen in place.  She slowly turned her head to Vesyk, a look of horror dawning slowly on her face.  She tried to open her mouth, couldn't.  
  
The General glanced briefly at her, then back to Vesyk, leaning back in his chair again.  "I'm safe from her, for the time being.  There was a paralytic on the glove I shook hands with.  She can't move."  
  
Vesyk slammed a button on her platform with her tail and began bellowing incoherently.  It would trigger an alarm that would summon soldiers into the room, so the order wasn't necessarily important.  She wasn't often agitated, so the incoherent orders would indeed get the soldiers in here faster.  
  
Panic began spiking through Aayla.  This was absurd.  She was upset at herself for falling for such a simple trick.  It shouldn't have taken more than just her to subdue him, but here she was, incapacitated.  This was the first time she'd dealt with something so underhanded, too.  Normally smugglers and pirates tried this with shows of force.  The General's underhanded plotting was something else entirely.  
  
The General leaned back and studied his hands with interest.  After a minute or two, when the guards didn't appear, he glanced back to Vesyk, who was nearly apoplectic.  
  
"I'm sorry, I should have mentioned.  The TIE Fighter pilot suit wasn't a disguise.  I needed the helmet's filter so I could flood the chambers with poison gas.  Your staff is dead."  
  
The Knight had begun mumbling softly, still facedown on the table.  The General looked over in annoyance, pulled his head up by the hair with one hand, and pinched his nose until he quieted, laying him back down and looking over at Vesyk again.  
  
Vesyk was yelling again, screaming expletives that not even Aayla had heard before.  The smell was terrible.  In some corner of her mind, she was impressed that the General and the Knight weren't gagging and vomiting.  Many visitors couldn't handle Vesyk's more mild scents on good days.  
  
This was absurd.  
  
This whole situation.  
  
One man had-  
  
Vesyk was over 800 years old.  How was she being attacked so directly?  And by only one person?  
  
Aayla tried to push words out past her uncooperative lips.  
  
"The... helmet.  First Order soldiers... gas... filter."  
  
The General glanced over at her and raised his eyebrows.  "You should be completely paralyzed.  I must have gotten the dose wrong."  He studied his hands a moment, then looked back up at her.  "I tell the soldiers their helmets don't filter out toxins so they don't do anything stupid.  But of course they have filters.  Why wouldn't they?"  
  
Aayla tried leaning forward, found she couldn't.  Vesyk was still screaming incoherently.  Aayla blinked.  "Gas."  
  
Hux grinned, which looked even more sinister on his face than it had on Kylo Ren's half-paralyzed one.  "The silent killer."  
  
Vesyk was calming down, though her smell was still overpowering.  Vesyk was breathing hard, but had fallen silent.  After a moment, she spoke.  
  
[We can negotiate.  I will cooperate with the First Order.  Are you interested in trade routes?  Smugglers for your planets?  Surely some understanding can be reached.]  
  
The General shook his head, still smiling.  "No.  I told you, you took something that belongs to me.  There is no negotiation.  Nothing I want from you, except to erase your existence and forget this lapse ever occurred."  
  
Aayla was stunned, would have had an undisguised look of incredulity on her face, had she been able to move it comfortably.    
  
Vesyk didn't have an expressive face, so her intent was hard to read in such an unexpected situation.  Aayla had no idea what was going through her mind for self-preservation.   Vesyk studied the General for a moment before voicing the same question Aayla had.  
  
[This is senseless, General.  Why start a war over one soldier?  Certainly you don't do this for your entire army.  It would be a considerable waste of your time.]  
  
"I'm not starting a war.  I'm carrying out an offensive action that I do not anticipate a retaliation for.  Admittedly, I planned it in haste.  I was not entirely confident it would go my way.  But so far, it's going well."  
  
"Haste."  Aayla hisses out from between her paralyzed lips, furious, stuck in her chair, a unit of soldiers dead on the other side of the door.  
  
The General raised one shoulder carelessly, his gaze dropping to the Knight again.  "He wouldn't be dissuaded from the visit.  Wouldn't listen to reason.  I had to throw something together in the few hours it took for us to approach the planet."  
  
[Do you think it is flattering, General, to know that this impertinence is a matter of a few hours work for you?]  This insult had been massive, though there was little Aayla or Vesyk could do about it now.  
  
The General's amusement had fled from his face, and he now regarded her with a cool glare.  "I don't think it's anything but necessary."  
  
"Why."  Aayla forced the word from between her lips again, trying to move her toes in her boots, willing her body to motion again.  
  
The General arched his eyebrows again.  "Back to the retrieval of a single soldier being a waste of my time."  
  
"Yes."  
  
His shoulder lifted and fell again.  "It is.  But this one is... singular."  
  
At this, the Knight stirred, turning his head on the table to face away from the General.  Aayla couldn't tell what expression he was making.  "Hux, I'm sorry."  
  
"I wish you'd tell me that when you weren't high as a starship."  
  
"I'm not.  Why would I be?"  
  
"I gave you something to block the affect of keel before you left.  Then they gave you keel.  I take it what I gave you is having to work quite hard to counteract it."  
  
"Mmm."  He turned his head back around to face the General, lifting his head up.  A look of naked lust was on his face.  Aayla couldn't currently read him with her lekku, was still wiggling her digits trying to will the life back into her fingers and toes.  "You promised me you wouldn't give me keel unless I lost a bet."  
  
"I didn't give it to you, they did.  And you did lose a bet, in a way.  I told you your Knight wouldn't be here.  So you deserve it."  
  
"When will you lose a bet again, Hux?"  
  
Hux smiled wickedly, indulgently.  "We can play sabacc when we get back to the ship, if you really want it that badly."  
  
The Knight closed his good eye.  "I can't wait that long."  He sat up, cupped the back of the General's neck in his hand and drew him forward.  The General let a flash of annoyance cross his face and reared back a moment, but the Knight only jerked harder, and the General closed his eyes and laid a hand on the Knight's arm to receive a sloppy, enthusiastic kiss.  One of them grunted slightly when they pulled away, Aayla couldn't determine who.  
  
Both she and Vesyk had been struck silent and motionless by the spectacle.  
  
Aayla stared at the two of them, who had bent closer to embrace.  She had known Kylo Ren would be a prize once captive and subdued, and that he was a powerful, dangerous man that, for all intents and purposes, waged the wars for the First Order.  But neither she nor Vesyk would have attempted to capture him had they known his lover was the other leader of the First Order.    
  
The General pushed the Knight away.  "Not right now.  We have an audience."  He cut a disinterested glance over to Vesyk, his palms on the Knight's chest to keep him at bay.  
  
"I don't care."  The Knight grabbed the General's wrists, and closed his eye to lean in again.  
  
"I do.  You know I like to be discrete."  
  
"That's not what you said on Coruscant."  
  
"The situation was much the same on Coruscant.  They were trying to play us off each other.  I wanted them to know they couldn't."  He paused, his eyes narrowing.  "And I walked in on you in Aubrie Wessel's lap.  And today, kissing this Twi'lek."  He glared at Aayla, who uncharacteristically shrank under the withering look.  She began wiggling her fingers and toes, now more interested in saving her own life than taking his.  
  
The Knight pulled back, a look of disbelief on his face.  "Are you jealous, Hux?"  
  
Hux shrugged.  "I suppose so.  It's a relief to me that you won't remember any of this to remind me later, though."  
  
"I would never forget something so..."  he closed his eyes and leaned in again, only to have the General put a hand over his lips.  
  
"I'm serious.  I won't do it with them watching.  You'll have to kill the Hutt if you want to continue."  
  
The Knight pulled away and scowled, glaring over at Vesyk.  The paralyzed side of his face made him look even more sinister.  "Hutts are too hard to kill."  
  
"If I could be said to believe in anything, it would be in your ability to kill anything in the galaxy.  I'm sure you'll come up with something."  
  
The Knights glare turned to Aayla.  She was now trying to move her wrists against the paralysis, frantically.  
  
"Can't I kill the Twi'lek instead?"  The Knight asked, turning back to the General, a petulant look on his face.  "She's watching, too.  And much easier to kill."  
  
The General's eyes narrowed, considering Aayla.  "Not at the moment, no.  But the Hutt has to die.  You'll have to kill her."  
  
The Knight leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and facing the ceiling, an exasperated sigh leaving his lips.  "This is going to be a lot of work."  
  
"That's what I have you for."  
  
[Stop,] Vesyk interrupted, her eyes closed.  Aayla thought she had been uncharacteristically quiet.  Aayla worked her tongue in her mouth and began trying to twitch her lekku, hoping to be mobile by the time everyone reached a decision.  Vesyk opened her eyes and looked over at the Knight and the General.  
  
[The First Order needs funds.  Certainly you can be bought off.  Everyone has a price.  Name it.]  Her eyes narrowed.  [Think of the largest sum of money you can imagine.  I'll give it to you, if you leave with your Knight right now.]  
  
The General laughed, and the Knight shifted in his seat, annoyed.  "What did it say that was so funny?"  
  
This only made the General laugh harder.  "She thinks I don't know what a large sum of money is, or how to get hers once you kill her."  
  
The Knight looked over at him, still petulant and annoyed.  "Killing her is too hard, Hux.  Do I really have to?"  
  
The General grinned at him, genuinely.  "Yes.  We'll keep the Twi'lek.  She'll know where all the money is."  
  
Vesyk blinked at him, turned to Aayla.  Turned back to the General.  
  
Aayla knew what was coming.  
  
[Kill the Twi'lek.  Kidnapping Kylo Ren was an indulgence that she asked for and that I allowed.  He was going to be hers.  She is merely a tool, she knows nothing about my business interests.]  
  
The betrayal didn't hurt, since Aayla held no illusions about Vesyk.  She weighed her options in the face of it.  Refute Vesyk, with the possibility that she could walk out of here with the First Order?  Or stay silent, and bet that these two wouldn't be able to walk away with Vesyk's entire, trillion-credit empire on a whim?    
  
She remembered watching Ben Solo, all those years ago, and how good she thought it would be to walk out of the rally with him and Luke Skywalker.  But she had walked out of there with her master, and Kylo Ren had killed those she imagined to be her saviors, and she had nearly captured Kylo Ren.  
  
There was no salvation for her, there was only service.  She stopped herself from imagining the good things.  Vesyk was good enough to her.  She stayed silent, staring at the General, stilling her frantic movements.  Wondering what was going to happen next.  
  
As furious as she was at being thwarted, there was also something thrilling about this.  The possibility that even Vesyk, as wealthy and powerful as she was, could be overthrown.  She had thought the same thing about her previous master.  And now the General would either kill her or make her serve.  And she would marvel when someone inevitably overthrew him, too.  
  
"No.  I think I'll take my chances with the Twi'lek."  The General turned back to the Knight.  "Have you determined how to kill the Hutt yet?"  
  
The Knight's face scrunched in distaste.  "I just have to stab and slice it until it dies, but..."  he closed his eyes, opened them again.  "the skin is hard to penetrate, and the slime makes them hard to grab.  It's difficult, even with the Force, but," he turned to look at Hux, his expression beginning to clear slightly.  "I can't use the Force right now.  Also, it smells bad.  They smell even worse when they die."  
  
"Yes, yes."  The General waved a gesture of dismissal.  "The ysalamiri.  You'll have to use your own muscle for once.  No magic powers.  And we'll all have to put up with the smell, unfortunately."  
  
"Do you really have to call them magic powers?"  The Knight asked, looking foggily around the table for something.  The General bent forward and retrieved the Knight's gloves from the floor, handing them to him silently.  
  
"The Force, then.  Either way, it's not present right now."  
  
The Knight pulled his gloves on and stood, beginning to walk across the room to Vesyk, who was pounding on her console with her tail and bellowing incoherently again.  
  
"I disconnected all the radio calls from here once the staff was dead."  The General waved his hand dismissively.  "You won't be able to summon anyone else from the planet, either.  The doors are locked, which I understand isn't an uncommon occurrence when you negotiate.  A shame, that this negotiation didn't go well for you.  Goodbye, Vesyk the Hutt."  
  
The Knight stood and powered on his lightsaber, which crackled and buzzed ominously.  Aayla edged away as Vesyk began making an uncanny keening sound, grinding against Aayla's ears as badly as her stench.  The sensory overload was unbearable, and she put her hands on her lekku in an attempt to block sensation.  
  
[Kill her!  Kill Aayla instead!  She's the one that laid hands on your partner!]  
  
The Knight advanced, ignorant of Vesyk's pleas.  The General watched with a disinterested gaze until the Knight made his first strike, shoving his sword into her mouth to sever her vocal chords.  Aayla well knew it took more than that to kill a Hutt, and the Knight would have a great deal of work before completely extinguishing the life of the Old One, cutting through her tough hide and layers of fat to access the tender parts buried inside.  
  
Aayla didn't watch.  She watched the General, who would be her new master or her killer.  The smell and exertions of the Knight's progress washed over both Aayla and the General, neither taking any notice.  Viscera splashed on Aayla.  She pulled a long, purple string of Vesyk off her shoulder, not taking her eyes from the General.  
  
The General nodded towards her.  "I take it that the paralysis has worn off?"  
  
Aayla lowered her hand into her lap, nodding.  She still didn't want to speak, wasn't sure what the General wanted to hear.  
  
"She was right, you know."  He flicked his gaze to the Knight, who was working frantically judging by the squelching noises and the burning smell of the lightsaber, then back to Aayla.  "You were the one that made advances on him."  
  
Aayla's face folded in on itself.  "I did not think my life would end for something so petty.  He was aroused, and he was Ben Solo, which reminded me of a good thing in my life.  His arousal turned me on, which is difficult to do to someone who has given up my previous line of work."  She sneered, raising one shoulder in dismissal.  "I gave him nothing as a sex aid.  I merely thought he was like that naturally, and I indulged."  
  
She didn't apologize, since she wasn't particularly sorry, and didn't believe the General possessed pity or forgiveness.    
  
To her surprise, the General put his head back and laughed, again.  This seemed genuine, and Aayla narrowed her eyes, distrusting this apparent mirth.  
  
"You... you weren't seducing him to get him to work for you easier?  He just did that himself?  He seduced you?"  He laughed again, putting one hand over his face, smiling in the way he had at the Knight.  He looked back up at her, schooling his face back to arrogance.  
  
"I had assumed, given your previous work, that you were trying to seduce him.  Are you telling me the truth?"  
  
Aayla rolled her eyes.  "I rarely touch anyone anymore.  I know well enough what people expect of my race, though.  Yes, I am telling the truth.  Certainly you can sympathize with wanting him, when he is like that."  She twitched her lekku, trying to read intention from the General.  Just amusement, and calm.  This was a dangerous man.  She still didn't know what he wanted to hear.  
  
"You said you gave him something, before he left?  When you mentioned that, I thought you might be baiting a trap for me, since apparently you knew I would intercept him.  Did you send him in here to seduce me?"  
  
"No, I did not."  Still amused.  "I will admit he is a little... sexually forward, but not to just anyone, as a rule."  He hid his mouth with his hand, still giving her a calculating stare.  "It must have been the keel.  We use it in the bedroom a lot.  A conditioned response."  
  
Aayla stared.  "You use our own carefully controlled spice variant, meant to make slaves of the unwilling... as a sex aid?"  
  
"Hmm.  I have ways of getting it, yes."  
  
He didn't offer more.  Aayla didn't want to know.  She pursed her lips.  "You'd better hope nobody slips you any, then."  
  
"I know better than to touch strangers with my bare skin, or take food with criminal cartels."  He glanced over at the Knight again, where the frantic burning and slashing had turned into a series of prolonged grunts.  A warm spray of viscera from Vesyk had splashed onto Aayla again. She could feel a glob of slime running down the side of her neck, and resisted the urge to wipe it away.  The General turned back to look at her once again, calmer and more calculating now.  
  
"How much do you know about Vesyk's cartel?"  
  
"Everything.  She was lying about that."  
  
The General arched his eyebrows in a human gesture of disbelief and leaned back.  "Everything.  Really.  I somehow doubt that Vesyk the Hutt trusted her fortunes to a single being.  I don't appreciate overblown egos.  It won't save you."  
  
Aayla sighed impatiently, waving her hand in annoyance.  "Vesyk had a tendency to kill those who displeased her.  I did a great deal of work to cover myself so that didn't happen.  I watched my coworkers closely, until I could do their jobs.  I could read their minds.  I knew their secrets.  I know it all."  She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, not letting the relief at the freedom to do the gesture show.  "Either you believe me or you don't, it matters not to me.  You just killed Vesyk.  I obviously know more than you do about her work."  
  
Hux stared hard at her, his expression inscrutable.  She could see that he still wasn't sure whether to believe her, and, judging by his actions here, she also thought that he likely knew a great deal more than most about Vesyk's empire.  He seemed like the type.    
  
He leaned forward, his expression unchanging.  "Presumably you do know more.  I suppose Kylo could run the First Order, if it came to that."  He considered her, and she could feel the weight of her life moving through his mind.  
  
But she had never been overly cautious, and had to know something.  "Could Kylo Ren, the man who walked into an obvious trap after being advised not to, run the First Order?"  
  
Somehow, it had been the right thing to say, and she could see the corner of the General's mouth twitch up as he leaned forward again.  "He could.  He knows the leadership well enough to have them work effectively at things he may not be good at.  He knows who could replace me, and he knows how things need to move forward.  And he even has an edge over me, by being able to do mind probes to determine who's loyal."  He looked over at the Knight, then back to Aayla.  "And all the battle strategy is his.  This trap worked partially because he is recklessly loyal to his Knights, but even so, I think he rushed in because I told him not to.  He likely won't do it again."  
  
"Ah."  Aayla said quietly.  "Not a fool, then."  
  
"No.  I don't suffer them."  He stared a few moments longer with his unreadable expression, and then continued.  "I want to spare you, and milk you for all the business that Vesyk the Hutt's former cartel could give the Order.  But I don't have a reason to trust you.  You were Vesyk's creature.  What would stop you from stabbing me in the back the first chance you get?  Or stealing what you like and absconding with it?"  
  
Aayla stared at him in disbelief for a few moments.  "You are my new master.  What benefit would I gain from defying you?"  
  
The General leaned back in his chair again, considering her.  "Do you think I'm stupid enough to believe that's all it takes for you?  That you'll go along with whoever kills your former master?"  
  
Aayla gritted her teeth.  "Again, General.  Either you will believe me, or you won't.  I don't care a great deal.  My life belongs to you now, and you can use it as you see fit."  She uncrossed her arms, leaned forward.  "For what it's worth, I've only known two masters, and that is exactly how I wound up serving Vesyk."  
  
He sat in silence a few moments longer.  Aayla heard the lightsaber power down, and she looked over to see the Knight kneeling, his arms in a pile of what was left of Vesyk, his back to them, gasping for breath.  She twitched her lekku to make sure Vesyk was not somehow still alive.  She turned back to the General, who leaned forward on the table again.  
  
"You mentioned mind-reading.  Can you do that because you are a Twi'lek, or do you do that with the Force?  I'd heard the latter, but I thought it might be a rumor started to make you more... fearsome."  
  
Vesyk gestured to one of the Force-blocking ysalamiri lizards perched in the branches of the tree that grew up behind Vesyk's platform and through the ceiling.  "I can usually use the Force.  Not right now, though.  But I can still read your mind well enough."  Which was a half-lie, she could only read emotions without the Force, but she was fairly sure the General knew that about Twi'leks.  She was keeping a near-constant read on him, and could feel that he was coming to a decision.  
  
"Threatening me with mind-reading won't work, I'm quite used to that.  But if you're Force-sensitive, you can replace that Knight you killed."  
  
Her eyes widened.  "The... Knight of Ren?"  
  
The General nodded.  "Take the oath with Kylo, and you can do as you like after that.  You'll have to serve, you'll be bound to him.  You'll be compelled to follow his orders.  But you can do as you like.  Serve the Order of Ren doing whatever mystic errands he usually does, or serve me doing things similar to what you do now.  It's your choice."  
  
Now it was Aayla's turn to be disbelieving.  "Why would you let me replace someone I killed?  A valued soldier like one of the Rens?"  
  
The General looked over at the Knight, and Aayla followed his gaze.  The Knight was laying on his side in a puddle of purple gore.  The smell was unbelievable, and Aayla didn't know how he had fallen asleep.  She couldn't read his emotions, found only a blankness.  His arousal was gone.  Pity.  She turned back to the General, who continued.  
  
"When you take the oath, it compels you to serve.  You won't be able to kill him, or disobey him, as I understand.  There's no risk of you turning on us, and you're too valuable a soldier to waste.  I see your murder of the other Knight as survival of the fittest."  
  
Aayla made a sound of amusement at the dismissal of her crime.  "I can still kill you, though, can't I?"  
  
The General inclined his head towards the Knight.  "I have much less of a temper than he does.  You wouldn't want to upset him by even thinking of hurting me.  I've seen it."  
  
Aayla felt her skin prickle.  She didn't want to know what the ire of the Knight looked like, if this is what the General did in retaliation for a slight against his lover.  
  
She leaned forward, putting her palms together in a gesture of assent.  "I will serve the Master of the Knights of Ren, and yourself, if that is what you ask of me."  
  
The General nodded once, satisfied.  He stood, walking over to where she was seated.  "And what would you rather do?  Run this cartel, or do combat and reconnaissance?"  
  
She followed him with her eyes.  "I do not make my own choices.  Do with me as you see fit."  
  
He let his irritation show on his face, and crossed his arms.  "I have no use for brainless slaves.  Decide.  I want you to choose."  As he spoke, he uncrossed his arms and gently began unknotting the webbing she wore on her lekku.  She closed her eyes as his fingers worked gently, caressing the skin.  As the netting fell away, the delicious sensation of her bare skin... it was new.  She had never been free.  Like this.  Had never not worn the sign of her service for all to see.  
  
She opened her eyes, looked up at his impassive face.  "I will get as much money as you like out of this cartel, General.  I will send the resources wherever you need them.  After that, give me a cause to fight for.  Something less petty than money or sex."  
  
He smirked, moving the fingers of one hand over to the other lekku, stroking the newly bare one with his other hand.  It was indecent, and she shivered under the touch, not sure why he was doing this.  
  
"Then you can fight for my cause.  You'll be one of the Knights."  They were both silent as he untied the webbing, and when he finished, she stood.  
  
She towered over the General, and outweighed him even more than she had the Knight.  Him removing the sign of her service hadn't changed anything about the physical power balance between the two.  She still had both her daggers.  With the Knight asleep, she could easily kill him, although it would be foolish to assume he didn't have another way to defend himself.  But Aayla was fast, and strong, and could likely wound him before she died.  
  
But why would she do that?  
  
She knelt in front of him.  She would serve, as she always did.  And this master wouldn't use her as a reflection of herself or a status symbol.  
  
She put her head down, her lekku trailing on the floor to either side of her.  She pressed her palm to her forehead, in the only Twi'lek gesture she knew - one of respect and supplication.  
  
"To death, General."  
  
He touched her head between her lekku, pressing her head back gently so she looked back up at him.  
  
"Very well.  Your first assignment will begin right now."


	2. Chapter 2

Kylo Ren fluttered his eyes open, looking around the chamber groggily.  He was sitting in the middle of an empty room, its walls and ceiling covered with rough brown fabric, a pipe system that glowed dimly with amber-colored light criss-crossing through the walls and entering the floor at intervals.  Yellow lizards clung, stationary, to the pipes.  An awful smell, like overripe wet garbage that had sat in the sun too long, hung oppressively over him.  He wrinkled his nose and looked across to the closed door.  
  
He closed his eye again, pain pressing into the back of his skull.  Fuck.  What had happened?  Where was he?  Something bad, what was it...  
  
He groaned when he remembered.  He had been trying to work his way past that Hutt, needed to do something diplomatic.  He should have listened to Hux, brought him along to negotiate while he looked for the missing Knight.  
  
He reached out with the Force, and found he still couldn't.  Impossible.  Hux had said that, too, that he wouldn't be able to.  But it was impossible.  There was the Force in all things, and there was no way to stop a Force user's communion with it.  Fucking Hux.  
  
This was a terrible, unnatural feeling, and was like being blind.  He had almost flown his ship off the planet immediately when he felt his senses being stripped away upon landing, but the thought of Hux knowing he had been right had driven him into the Hutt's palace.  
  
He opened his eyes again, glared at the door, and attempted to hoist himself from the chair.  He glanced down, found that he was bound down the length of his forearms to the chair.  His clothing was sopping wet, globs of some unpleasant slime and strings of biomatter slicked all over it.  He tested his legs, which were bound to the chair in the same way, with the same thick, fibrous ropes.  He struggled, but the chair was... purple?  Purple paristeel of some type.  He couldn't break it, and he couldn't use the Force to snap his bonds.  The arms were only attached to the back of the chair, but widened at the ends, and he couldn't slide his ropes off the edges.  He rattled his arms and legs, and banged the chair against the floor furiously, futilely.  
  
He leaned back, pressing his head against the high wide back and closing his eyes again, trying desperately to calm himself down, to sort through his hazy memories.  The room was humid and oppressively hot, and his hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat and something else, something that was coating his entire body.  He had lost his gloves and helmet at some point.  He tried to mentally go over his talk with the Hutt and that Twi'lek.  
  
He had been in a rush, and they had seemed offended, wanted him to do some song-and-dance in front of the Hutt.  He didn't want to be there, and hadn't wanted to waste the time.  He could remember eating something, because they had insisted as part of whatever ritual he was supposed to know about and didn't.  But he couldn't remember anything else.  
  
What had happened?  They must've given him something to knock him out.  But then what was all over his clothes?  Had the Hutt touched him, for some reason?  He shuddered.  Best not to think about that.  
  
He could hear blaster fire on the other side of the door, and he tried to sweep the pain from the inside of his skull, trying to be alert for whatever was about to happen.  There was very little he could do, tied to a chair without the use of the Force.  He could die, but that was about it.  Still, it was best to be prepared.  He heard the fighting getting closer, the blaster fire growing more intermittent.  
  
The door flew open, and his good eye widened when he saw the huge red Twi'lek back through the door, holding someone in front of her around the neck with her arm, a dagger in her other hand.  
  
She slammed the hand with the knife into a panel to the side of the door, and the door slid shut in front of her.  She spun back around, her eyes widening slightly when she spotted the Knight.  She raised the knife back to her captive's throat.  
  
Kylo strained against the bonds of his chair, groaning a little.  
  
Hux.  
  
She had Hux.  
  
He gritted his teeth, forcing out a "Why" over the cacophony of questions, of protesting, of muddled thought that wouldn't let him figure out what Hux was doing here, and how she had captured him.  Impossible.  It was impossible.  He tried reaching out with the Force, again and again, trying to read the situation from Hux, from the Twi'lek.  But there was no Force, and she had Hux, and he was tied to a chair.  
  
She grinned cruelly.  "The sleeping prince awakes.  We're all locked together in here, you two and I, and you're my ticket to freedom.  You're going to have to call off those First Order Troopers, and get them to let me go free."  
  
Kylo barely heard her, his gaze locked on Hux's face.  His hands were around the Twi'lek's meaty arm, his legs struggling to pull back against her grip.  His face looked more genuinely terrified than Kylo had ever seen him.  Kylo made a noise low in his throat, wanting to reach out with his mind to find out what had happened, why Hux was so scared, to soothe him, to somehow get that look off his face.  
  
He looked back up at the Twi'lek, trying to channel his fury into the strength to snap his bonds, or into a communion with the Dark Side.  He could feel the bonds groaning against the chair, against his attempts to stand up.  He could feel them cutting into his muscles, and still.  Still he could do nothing.  Because this planet blocked the use of the Force, and Hux had-  
  
Hux had.  
  
"Please,"  Kylo gritted out, still straining against the bonds. He spat the word, in a panic, not knowing what else to do.  "The soldiers won't attack you while you have him."  He looked back to Hux, who had slowed in his struggles.  He was wearing a Fighter Pilot uniform, for some reason.  Had he tried to sneak in undercover?  That made even less sense.  
  
Kylo jerked in his bonds again, cursing himself for not being able to read their minds, for not knowing what was going on, what he had done that had gone so badly that Hux had come down to get him, wearing a different uniform, and that he had been captured and Hux had been captured and-  
  
Why would Hux do this?  
  
As Hux looked over at him, his normally cold blue eyes frozen in fear, Kylo's chest tightened.  He knew why.  Hux had told him not to go on this mission, because it was a trap, and it was dangerous.  And Kylo hadn't listened.  He had wanted to rescue his Knight, if there was any chance of it, and Hux was just being so infuriatingly superior and contrary.  
  
He twisted against the bonds, still burning with fury.  "Let me go," he managed to grit out, almost as levelly as he had hoped.  
  
The Twi'lek frowned at him, looking him up and down.  "I'm not freeing you.  It's not worth my life.  But I'll let him go, and I'm going to open the door, and you're going to order those Stormtroopers not to fire on me.  And then I'm going to escape this planet, and the First Order isn't going to follow me."  
  
Kylo strained at the ropes, sawed them madly against the legs and arms of the chair, in the hope that some burr, some manufacturing defect, would part the fibers that were holding him in place.  Sweat was trickling down his neck.  The viscous purple fluid coating him was uncomfortably warm and suffocating against his skin, and he wondered madly if cleaning it off himself would help him re-connect with the Force.  He looked at Hux, rather than the Twi'lek, when he spoke.  
  
"Fine.  Do it."  He would find her.  A fat red Twi'lek that big would be easy to track anywhere in the galaxy, unless someone captured her and enslaved her again.  And even then, he would find her.  He had his ways.  He would find her and start with the fingers clamped around Hux's jaw-  
  
"Mmm.  I don't think so."  The Twi'lek said, narrowing her eyes again.  "I can feel your homicidal rage from here.  Intriguing.  You are certainly very serious about guarding the life of your leader."  She cocked her head.  "What would you be willing to trade for your General, then?"  She tightened her grip on Hux, dragging him up and off the floor, his face purpling, looking angry and afraid, his fingers scrabbling at her arm again.  
  
Kylo focused on Hux again.  "Anything.  What is it you want?"  He wasn't serious, was just going to tell her what she wanted to hear until her grip loosened and Hux broke free and grabbed the knife, stabbing her and freeing him and letting him have his turn with the knife on her.  
  
"I want to serve, Master of the Knights of Ren."  
  
This was startling enough that it caused Ren to really look at her.  Her face was blank, expressionless.  She was giving him a considered look.  He tried again, unconsciously, to use the Force to read her.  He failed, of course.  
  
"My master is dead.  I am aware of an opening in your order, for those who are Force-sensitive.  I would take your oath.  I would serve you.  It would guard my life, and yours, correct?"  
  
Kylo blinked at her.  "Is the Knight dead?"  
  
"Yes!"  Hux strangled out. "Fuck's sake Ren, just say yes!"  
  
He had a moment of despair.  He had felt the connection to the Knight sever abruptly, but he hadn't wanted to believe that's what it meant.  He hadn't lost one of the Knights before, since he'd become leader.  When he'd received the transmission from Myrkr, he had been so hopeful, because of course she couldn't be killed like some weak, common person, she was a Knight of Ren, and one of his, and he could go get her and find out why their bond had been severed.

But she was dead.  And he couldn't think about that right now, had to set it aside, because the Twi'lek had Hux, who wasn't one of his Knights but was even more irreplaceable.  His gaze shifted back to Hux, and he had that ache in his chest again.  It didn't matter, really, he could figure out the Twi'lek later, especially if she wanted to be on his side, so to speak.  That would make things easier.  He could take his time with her.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Your oath, Kylo Ren.  That you will admit me into your Order."  
  
He looked back up at her.  He wasn't sure that the oath was binding, without the Force.  Even better. 

He closed his eyes and chanted the first part in the traditional Sith language, and opened them to finish in Basic.  "There is no death, there is the Force, and it sets us free.  May you serve 'til you are free in the Ancient Knights of Ren."  He felt nothing when the words left his mouth, and he had also not done the blood pact.  This was not binding, but she did not have to know that.  
  
She closed her eyes briefly, opened them again.  She took her arm from Hux's neck, held him in front of her.  Shockingly, she leaned forward and whispered something in his ear that made him flush bright red.  
  
Kylo's brow wrinkled.  What had she said that embarrassed Hux?  Kylo had yet to find anything that shamed the man.  
  
Even more incredibly, she kissed him on the mouth, spun him around to face Kylo, and leaned down intimately again.  She looked directly at Kylo, and murmured "You promised" into Hux's ear loud enough for Kylo to hear.   She then shoved him into Kylo's lap.  He stared at her as she opened the door, looked over her shoulder at the two of them, grinned, and left.  
  
Kylo momentarily forgot his panic and fury.  What had just happened?  And hadn't she been in here because she was fighting off Stormtroopers?  Where were they?  He decided it didn't matter what the Twi'lek had done, and he shifted his attention to Hux.  
  
Hux was breathing slightly heavier than normal, glaring over his shoulder.  Had Kylo been able to read his thoughts, he was sure they would have been as murderous as his own.  He struggled against his bonds, against the lack of the Force.  
  
"Untie me.  I'll go after her."  
  
Hux turned back to him, his face flushed, but his expression schooled to his usual blank indifference.  "Unnecessary.  She's an ally now."  He ran his hands absently over Kylo's arms, turning back to stare over his shoulder at the door in consideration.  
  
Kylo sawed his arms against the bonds again.  "Untie me!  There's... something wrong.  Hux, I'm sorry."  He dropped his gaze from Hux's face, continued to try to pull his arms free.  Hux was sitting facing him in his lap, legs slid under the arms of the chair, and he didn't want to pull his legs out from under Hux, in case Hux was hurt.  He wanted to run his hands up and down Hux, to make sure he was okay, and that nobody had hurt him, and then to go out and fix whatever had gone wrong so badly.  Then he wanted to take his shuttle back out into space, with Hux aboard, and sink himself into Hux's thoughts, go back through his memories to find the moment he decided to go after Kylo, what he was feeling then.  
  
Hux turned back around to answer him.  "Oh, now you're sorry?  After they went through with everything I warned you about?"  
  
The teasing tone in Hux's voice made him look up.  Hux was giving him one of his best infuriatingly condescending looks.  Kylo scowled at him, feeling the tight muscles on the dead side of his face pull in protest.  
  
"You just had a knife at your throat.  Death threats don't seem to affect you."  
  
"Yours never did."  
  
Kylo quirked the side of his mouth, studying Hux, whose hands had moved to still Kylo's arms against the chair.  "They eventually affected you in a different way.  I guess."  He looked away, and then back, hating that he couldn't say that with the Force.  "You came after me."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Did it go that badly?"  
  
"Mmm."  Hux looked away.  Kylo frowned slightly again.  It was unlike Hux to break eye contact.  He tried the Force again, not knowing what else to do to make Hux tell him what was wrong.  
  
He wasn't sure what to make of Hux's evasion.  But it wasn't important.  "Did they hurt you, Hux?  Did that Twi'lek... did she do anything?  Why are you wearing a Pilot uniform?"  He closed his eyes and shook his head.  "What happened?"  
  
His lap was growing uncomfortably warm through the dampness of his clothes and with Hux's weight pressing into his thighs.  He looked back up at Hux, who was smirking again.  
  
"Hard to explain what happened."  He looked over his shoulder at the door, turned back again.  "But it's all right now.  I don't think there's anything for you to clean up, the Stormtroopers took care of it."  
  
Kylo squirmed again.  He hated not knowing, not being able to dig for the memories, not knowing what Hux was feeling.  "But how did the Stormtroopers... how did you get them down here?  How did they take out the Hutt's people?  They..."  he dug through his memories for something useful, could find nothing, no memories of what kind of force the Hutt had employed as protection.  "There were a lot of mercenaries, weren't there?"  
  
"The Stormtroopers weren't hampered by diplomacy."  
  
"But how did you get them past the Hutt's ship blockade?"  
  
"Mmm."  Hux looked away again briefly, then back to Kylo.  Something was wrong.  There was something Hux wasn't telling him.  Maybe he had been injured?  
  
"Hux..."  He jerked his arms again.  "Untie me, please.  Did they hurt you?"  
  
The corner of Hux's mouth quirked again.  "Maybe I like you right here, in a chair, in a room by yourself, where you'll learn your lesson.  Stop that, you'll hurt yourself."  
  
He stilled Kylo's thrashing arms again, then began to pick at the knots on the ropes binding him to the chair.  Kylo squirmed slightly under him, impatient to have his hands free and roaming over Hux's body, checking for injuries.  
  
Hux's work on the knots slowed, then stopped.  He looked back up into Ren's face, his eyes narrowed.  Kylo gritted his teeth.  
  
"Hux, please."  He strained again for good measure, partially out of frustration, but also because Hux had told him not to.  Hux laid his hands on top of the ropes on Kylo's arms, stilling him again.  
  
"No.  It's true what I said.  This is exactly where I want you."  
  
"Don't be a dick.  Let me up, I want-"  He wanted to go kill that Twi'lek, or something, anything.  He needed to do violence, after failing so badly.  He needed them to know that he couldn't be beaten that easily, and what happened to people that tried these clever tricks.  But mostly, he just needed to touch Hux to make sure he was okay.  
  
Kylo closed his eyes, blew out a breath in frustration.  "Look, I'll say whatever you want me to say.  You were right, okay?  They did trick me.  I didn't think anybody could, or would, and I didn't believe you that I couldn't use the Force here.  I should have listened to you.  I'm sorry.  You're right when it comes to tricks like this, and I'm not."  He opened his eyes.  "Let's just skip the part where you leave me in here, tied to a chair all day to prove a point."  
  
Hux snorted.  "An actual apology.  I should set up traps for you myself, if it will humble you at the end."  
  
Kylo tensed, because this was something Hux would actually do, and Kylo would never see it coming.  He clenched his jaw again, still wanting in a way that needed to be satisfied immediately by wrapping his hands around the throat of something until it went lifeless, or by running his slimy fingers through Hux's hair, his palms across Hux's biceps to make sure his limbs were intact and uninjured.    
  
"Don't scare me like this on purpose.  But I'll say anything right now.  Just let me up."  Admitting he was scared was another thing he shouldn't have to say out loud, but he would, just this once, so Hux would know he was sorry and didn't mean for Hux to get involved.  
  
"Mmm."  Hux's hand went to Kylo's belt.  "I know what you want.  You want your little revenge against them.  Don't think I don't know that you're sitting here, struggling to get out and do murder in this miserable swamp to make yourself feel better.  You want to slaughter that Twi'lek, saw open her middle and strangle her with her own guts."  
  
Hux pulled a small folding knife out of his belt, opening the blade.  Kylo fixed his gaze on it and frowned, calming at the thought of Hux sawing through his bonds.  "Why didn't you use that against her?"  
  
"It's a little small for something that big.  Do you think she would have even felt it?"  
  
"She would have felt it if you stabbed her in the throat."  
  
"Maybe I was scared and forgot I had it."  
  
This was another not-quite-truth.  Kylo shifted again, not liking that there was something here he was missing.  He looked back up at Hux, beginning to protest, but the complaint died on his lips when he saw something in Hux's face.  It was still arrogant, still full of disdain and judgement, but there was something else.  Maybe the color.  His dilated pupils.  The way he was looking at the small knife that Kylo found a little alarming.  Hux would never hurt him, but there was also always something dangerous about Hux.  Unpredictable.  Abruptly, Kylo's battle lust transformed into something else, plunging the wanting deep and low into his abdomen.  He pulled his lower lip into his mouth, wanting even worse to sink his mind into Hux's to find the arousal he hoped was there.  
  
"You've ruined your clothes."  Hux said, dismissively.  "What are you covered in?  And you smell even worse than normal."  
  
Kylo shook his head.  "I don't remember."  The material of his clothing was stuck wetly to his skin all over, and he could smell the garbage reek coming off him.  He could see the dampness creeping up into Hux's black pants, as well as a bulge that he hadn't noticed before.  Kylo was soaked everywhere.  His hair was matted to his head, the strands stuck to his forehead and eyes.  He had no idea how long he'd been wet.    
  
He jerked again when Hux pulled the hem of his tunic up and put the knife under it.  "Hey!  Don't do that.  Just untie me."  He wanted to touch so badly.  Before, he had wanted to touch, then kill, but the touching, when Hux wanted it, felt like the only thing in the galaxy that could possibly matter at the moment.  
  
Hux responded by parting the fabric brusquely with his sharp knife.  "No.  You're staying tied up.  And your clothing goes.  I am absolutely not letting you wear them again after this."  
  
"Come on!  You know this is what I always wear.  It'll dry."  
  
Hux rolled his eyes as the cut reached his collar and he peeled the rough layers away from Ren's skin, the fabric trailing viscous lines of slime and fibrous purple gore back to his body.  "I know it's what you always wear.  I've been waiting for an opportunity to dispose of it for quite some time.  I will replace it with something clean.  Maybe more than one outfit this time."  
  
"Why do I need more than one?  I can only wear one at a time."  
  
"Some people clean their clothes, Kylo.  I know this isn't something that you are aware of.  Perhaps you can wear a second, or even a third outfit, while one that's soaked in entrails is washed."  
  
Kylo smirked.  "I do that for you, Hux."  
  
Hux looked up into his face and raised his eyebrows.  "The murder, or the not washing?"  
  
"Both."  Kylo leaned forward as far as he could and closed his eyes, hoping that Hux would kiss him, hating not being able to read the want off him.  Instead, he could feel Hux's hands running through the foul mucous on his chest.  The slime appeared to be a purplish color, and Hux was pushing globs of it and the purple offal from his destroyed tunic onto his chest.  Kylo inhaled as Hux traced a nipple with one hand, running the other down the plain of his abdominal muscles, his fingers sketching the ridges between the muscles, stopping at the waistband of his pants.  He wasn't looking at Kylo's face, although Kylo knew Hux had ignored his silent request for a kiss.  That was annoying, but the annoyance was drowned out in the sensation from his sensitive nipple.  
  
"You'd do the murder anyway."  Hux said absently, bowing his back and bringing his lips to just in front of Kylo's nipple.  He exhaled, the breath sensitive against the damp skin.  "Don't think I don't know what you are."  
  
"Hux.  Please cut my hands free."  
  
Hux exhaled again, and Kylo moaned as Hux trailed his tongue through the thick layer of slime to caress his hard nipple, licking the fluid from it.  He straightened, narrowed his eyes, and bent forward to kiss Kylo.  Kylo moaned again as Hux's tongue worked its way into his mouth, the viscous substance sliding between their tongues.  Hux bit his lip and pulled away, trailing a strand between them that connected their mouths.  Hux licked his lips.  
  
Kylo strained harder against his bonds, wanting to run his fingers through Hux's hair.  He jerked hard three times, trying to jerk the chair off the floor and Hux out of his lap in an effort to somehow smash it to pieces.  He thought he might be able to pull it apart himself, if he tried hard enough, although some part of his mind not driven crazy by the wanting to touch Hux knew that he'd wind up sideways on the floor, still strapped to the indestructible chair.  
  
"I told you to stop that, you're hurting yourself."  
  
"If you don't want me to hurt myself, untie my hands."  
  
"I'm afraid not.  You're going to have to do with me touching you for now."  Hux brought the knife back up and began parting the fabric from the collar of his tunic down to his arms.  As the fabric split, he pulled it with one hand, widening the opening between the layers and trailing wet kisses through the slime on his arm.  When he reached the ropes, he cut the fabric off all the way around Kylo's arm, pulling it away, using the edges of one hand to push the fluid onto Kylo's skin.  When he looked back up, his mouth was covered with the purple slime.  It was repulsive, until he made an effort to lick some of it away with his tongue.  He bent forward, and Kylo did the work for him, trailing his tongue over Hux's roughened cheeks and jaw, catching Hux's lip between his teeth and trying to pull Hux in closer.  Hux smiled, just a little, and pulled away again.  
  
Kylo was fully hard now, aching, his dick rubbing through his pants against Hux's, who was also hard and straddling his lap.  Kylo wanted the use of his hands to palm himself, to open his pants, to guide Hux's hips against his and grind down.  He moaned, jerking harder against the fibers, which groaned and cut into the flesh of his arms.  
  
Hux stared into his eyes, the same arrogant expression on his face, and with one arm, jerked the fabric of his shirt from behind his back, ripping it away from the intact shoulder.  There was slight pain where the stitching held, and a mess of a mucus sheet that trailed from his body to where Hux had discarded the remnants of the shirt onto the floor with a wet slapping sound.  Unexpectedly, his back had been dry, and he had felt a burning sensation as the rough fabric passed between his back and the chair.  
  
Hux leaned forward again, dragging the palm with the knife through Kylo's hair, wiping the strands away from his forehead on the bad side of his face.  He bent in, running his face down his scar, grasping the shoulder with the torn cloth with his other hand and pressing their bodies closer together.  
  
Kylo could neither see nor feel on the bad side of his face.  When he turned his head, Hux followed his face with his own, but Kylo could see that Hux had closed his eyes.  There was a slight pins-and-needles sensation, but nothing more, most of the nerves and muscles having been severed when the girl had defeated him.  He had kept it to remind himself of a debt owed, a reminder whenever he had to guard against attack from that side or changed his facial expression.  He thought about it every day.  
  
Hux leaned in closer, brushing his fingers along his temple to tuck his wet, sticky hair behind his ear.  Hux positioned his lips close enough that Kylo felt him exhale against his damp skin and shivered.  "You showed them your face."  
  
Kylo blinked.  "They wanted me to eat.  It's not like anybody would recognize me."  
  
"They did."  Hux's fingers were still snaking through his sodden hair, twisting in the longer, drier strands near the nape of his neck, pulling.  Kylo leaned his head back, trapping Hux's hand.  It was the only power he had.  
  
"There's nothing to recognize anymore."  
  
Hux flattened his hand and caressed the back of his neck.  "That Twi'lek told me that meeting Ben Solo once almost inspired her to kill her former master and run away with him."  Hux bit down on his earlobe, pulling on it, then moved further down, nuzzling the soft skin behind his ear with his lips.  It was a spot Kylo liked, and his hips jerked forward, a small grunt escaping his lips.  "It's nice to know that your face has always inspired murder in others."  
  
Kylo exhaled in amusement as Hux flexed his hips against Kylo's.  He pulled away, removing his hand from the back of Kylo's head, looking into his good eye briefly.  The side of his face was tinted purple from the slime in Kylo's hair, some stuck in his red hair, which now spiked wetly from his skull in places.  
  
Kylo leaned forward to rub his face in it, Hux leaned back.  Kylo moaned in frustration again.  
  
"What do you want from me, Hux?  What do I have to say to make you untie me?"  He hated having to ask, hated not being in Hux's head for this.  
  
"Mmm."  Hux pulled back slightly and looked down into their laps.  "Tell me why you need your hands right now."  
  
Kylo gritted his jaw.  He hated this sort of thing.  Would rather have just pushed his feelings at Hux.  He turned his head, looking at the wall.  "You know why."  
  
"Tell me.  The more specific the better."  He stood, kneeling in front of the chair, both hands on Kylo's damp knees.  
  
"I want to touch you."  He gritted out, feeling Hux use the knife to sever the belt with a jerk.  "Hey!  You don't need to cut that!  I can still use it."  
  
Hux reached into the top of one of his boots, pulling out a long string of something wet and purple-red.  He studied it in front of his face for a moment, then threw it on the ground.  He pulled the belt out and discarded it, and began using the knife on the waist of the pants.  "You aren't leaving here with a scrap of these clothes."  
  
"What am I supposed to wear out of here, then?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"I can't go to the ship naked."  
  
Hux looked up into his face, then back down to the pants, which he was slitting along one pant leg, his other hand gripping his thigh firmly.  Kylo made a sound of appreciation when Hux freed his erection.  "Don't pretend like that bothers you."  
  
Kylo turned his head toward the wall again, arousal slightly dampened by Hux's infuriating stubbornness and the way he knew him so well.  Walking out naked didn't bother him, no.  He thought about pressing the point.  "I can't be seen naked in front of the Stormtroopers.  They'll lose respect for me."  
  
"I'll send the Stormtroopers away."  
  
Kylo sighed, conceding for once, as Hux had sawed the rest of his pants off to just below the knee.  He lifted his hips as much as he was able, and Hux slid the pants out from underneath him, dumping them in another sodden pile next to the chair.  His dick was slightly damp from the slime and very hard once freed from the confines of his pants.   He felt like pointing out to Hux that sometimes it was good that he didn't wear underwear, but didn't want Hux to go back through all the reasons he should.  He thought about the Stormtroopers seeing him naked instead.  "It doesn't matter.  They won't recognize me, anyway."  
  
Hux folded the knife and put it back in his belt pouch, then leaned forward, just between Kylo's knees.  "They will.  What did I tell you about that fucking helmet?"  
  
Kylo glanced around the room, distracted, wanting Hux to get on with it.  "It's not here.  The Hutt must have taken it, for some reason."  
  
"It's in the other room."  
  
Kylo scowled, the paralyzed muscles pulling slightly, reminding him.  His face cleared, and he looked down at Hux, who seemed to be glaring at his erection.  A thought hit him, something he would know in a second if he had the Force, but without it he found the question tumbling from his lips unbidden.  "Hux.  Are you jealous of my face?"  
  
He saw a muscle in Hux's jaw tighten, and the slight reddening of Hux's face told him he was probably correct.  He flexed his legs, the fiber ropes pulling painfully against his shins.  
  
"Hux _please_.  I have to touch you."  
  
Hux looked up at him, with that infuriating neutral expression.  "I told you.  Be more specific."  
  
Kylo gritted his teeth.  "If I had my hands, I'd wipe that stupid look off your face."  
  
A flash of amusement, and Hux looked back down, bending over Kylo's erection, moving his hand along his slick thighs.  "That almost sounds like a threat."  
  
"It is."  
  
"How would you do it, Kylo?"  
  
Hux punctuated the question by running his tongue along the underside of Kylo's dick in a quick swipe, causing it to bob in the air with momentum, and throb.  The muscles in Kylo's abdomen flexed, and he put his head back against the chair, closing his eyes.  "I'd be running my fingers through your hair."  
  
Hux teased the tip of his dick with his teeth, his hands remaining firmly gripped on his thighs.  "Oh?  There's not very much of my hair, compared to yours.  I always thought that must be disappointing, since you're obviously so fond of your own."  
  
"I can't tell if you're being shitty or if this is dirty talk."  
  
"Keep going.  What's next?"  
  
He punctuated the question by taking Kylo's dick abruptly into his mouth and throat, burying his lips in Kylo's damp pubic hair and using one hand to grip the base.  Kylo groaned, flexing his arms again, and closed his eyes.  
  
"Ah.  Just... just your neck.  I'd wrap my fingers around it, with the hand not in your hair.  Run my fingers own the back of your neck."  He wasn't sure what Hux was looking for.  He didn't usually touch Hux when Hux was fellating him, so he didn't know what to say.  He still wanted his hands free.  "Maybe I'd touch your shoulders, too."  
  
Hux's throat felt so good clenched around his cock.  It didn't take much to make him come, and he could feel himself peaking, felt maddeningly like he should have been coming already.  It usually didn't take much.  One or two more pumps of Hux's throat would finish him.  
  
Hux pulled back.  "Your dirty talk is really getting to me.  Much more of that and I'll come before we even get started."  This was said in a deadpan as Hux raised himself up off his knees.  Kylo didn't need the Force to interpret.    
  
Hux stood, fully clothed, an erection visible through his black Pilot pants, his hands on his hips, considering Kylo.  
  
Kylo smirked with the good side of his face.  "If my hands were free now, I'd pull you back into my lap and start tearing that uniform to shreds.  I'd make sure I wasn't the only one leaving here naked."  
  
Hux raised his eyebrows again.  "Well, it's a good thing I left you in the chair, then.  You get a little unruly when you think you've got me under your thumb."  
  
Kylo snorted.  "I don't ever think that.  I know better."  
  
Hux dropped his arms to his sides.  "I know you do.  Still, you've done something to upset me, and you just threatened to make me walk out of here naked for saving your life.  What am I going to do with you?"  
  
Kylo licked his lips, tasting the remnants of the salty slime where Hux had kissed him and pulling a string of something into his mouth, swallowing it.  There was still a chance that Hux would walk away and leave him here, but Kylo didn't think so.  Not if Hux was hard, too.  
  
Hux walked around to his bad side, and Kylo twisted his head until he lost sight of him.  He grunted in annoyance, and then heard the rustling of clothes as Hux began undressing behind him.  After a moment, he could hear Hux putting his hands on either side of his head, on the high back of the chair.    
  
Kylo's head spun for a moment when, without warning, Hux slammed the back of the chair ungently to the ground.  This left Kylo on his back, knees in the air, staring up at Hux's erection.  Hux was looking down, the disdainful look still on his face.  
  
"You're filthy.  What are you covered in?"  
  
Kylo blinked.  "You've been licking it off me.  What does it taste like?"  
  
Hux crouched down.  "It tastes like one of the Hutts outsmarted and captured you.  It smells like you slaughtered every creature on this planet, and then rolled around in it.  That you killed something foul and fell asleep in it because they drugged you and told you to.  Is that what you did?"  
  
"Yes?"  Kylo tried, questioningly, not sure what Hux wanted here, wanting badly to be in Hux's head for whatever was about to happen.  
  
Hux's gaze roved over the plain of Kylo's chest, stopping at the join of his thighs and hips.  The slick fluid that Hux had smeared liberally over his chest had pooled in his lap, and was now running slowly down the sides of his hips, trailing some sort of viscera along with it.  Hux crouched dangerously close to Kylo's head, scooped some slime with both hands, and began sliding his hands over Kylo's thighs, up his sides, over both biceps.  
  
He glanced dispassionately down between his legs at Kylo's face, then rolled forward onto his knees, kneeling on the back of the chair with a knee on either side of Kylo's head, and began slicking his erection with the fluid just out of Kylo's sight.  
  
"I want you to taste what you've done.  I want you to lick it off me.  Are you going to do that, or am I going to have to give you some of the keel myself?  I think it's safe to say that I won this game, isn't it?"  
  
Kylo growled low in his throat.  "If my hands were free, I would slap your tiny half-handful of an ass and stuff my cock into that infuriating fucking mouth of yours to shut you up."  
  
"But they aren't.  You're going to have to make a choice here."  He finished slicking his dick, pulling his hand away and trailing a sheet of the slime deliberately across the bad side of Kylo's face.  He rubbed his hand in the puddle of slime and purple matter pooling in Kylo's sternum, and brought it behind himself, propping himself up higher on his knees and leaning forward, bracing his arm and resting his weight against Kylo's abdomen so Kylo could see him position one finger over his asshole, straddling just above his face.  
  
"Do you want to lick up what's left of your victim from my dick, or are you going to eat it out of my ass?"  
  
Kylo watched, speechless, as Hux's finger penetrated his asshole, his weight pressing into Kylo's stomach.  Kylo's dick throbbed in response.  
  
"I want both."  Kylo pushed out quickly, slightly breathless.  
  
"Both?  I should have known, after this greedy, selfish escapade.  Why should I give you both?"  
  
Hux's finger pushed in and out, hypnotically.  The purple slime was gathering in the crack of his ass, running slowly off his fingers, leaving viscous trails that connected his pumping hand and freckled ass to Kylo's face.  
  
"I don't know what you want me to say here.  We never talk during sex."  
  
"That's because, when you have your hands free, you are rather businesslike and distracting.  This time, you are tied to a chair and I can take my time."  
  
"I'm not really into being tied up, Hux."  
  
"You're full of shit.  I'll be lucky if you don't come down my throat the second I sit down on your face."  
  
He had a point.  They normally had the same ritual, which involved fucking Hux over the side of the large bathtub Ren had custom-installed in their suite, bathing together, and then riding him hard into the mattress and falling asleep on him.  Kylo licked his lips, tasting the strands of the fluid drizzling down on his face.  "So it's the asshole, then?"  
  
Hux shifted, and slipped a second finger in.  He watched them disappear and reappear.  Hux's other hand came up to stroke his dick slowly.  The fingers in the asshole disappeared to elsewhere, reappeared in Kylo's vision with more of the fluid.  
  
"Are you going to be able to do both?"  
  
No, and Hux knew it.  He could barely keep himself hard long enough to pump inside Hux a handful of times, when he was really trying to hold himself back.  He enjoyed Hux too fucking much to not fall apart at any attention from him, at Hux's filthy mental commentary as Kylo rode him.  His dick was currently so hard it hurt, and he wasn't sure he would even last long enough for Hux to lower himself down to sit on his face.  
  
"Yes," he lied.  
  
"Hmm."  Hux made a sound.  Incredibly, he still didn't sound aroused, and Kylo couldn't tell without the Force, though evidence suggested he was.  "I think we're going to have to try these one at a time.  Are you ready to lick the blood of your enemy out of my asshole?"  
  
Kylo swallowed.  "Hux, please."  
  
"You keep asking me so nicely tonight, and apologizing for what you've done.  I'll have to reward you."  
  
And with that, he lowered onto Kylo's face.  Again, the feel of Hux's soft skin was a sensation that he expected to peak from, but it only brought him that much closer to the edge, his dick harder, aching.  His tongue sought the tight opening, trailing around it and drawing the salty slime into his mouth, licking the excess from as far up into Hux's crack as he could reach and from just below his balls.  
  
The salt taste of the slime hid the flavor of Hux's skin.  Kylo was disappointed, a bit, because he'd only done this twice and fantasized quite a bit about it, but could never bring himself to ask.  He wanted to taste Hux, not whatever it was that was all over him.  His hands strained against the arms of the chair again, and, seeming to know what he wanted, Hux obliged him by digging his fingers into one side of his own firm ass, parting it.    
  
The effect was somewhat ruined when he rocked back, sitting more fully and blocking the breath from Kylo's nose, but it didn't matter.  Deprivation was part of his training.  He could hold his breath for several minutes when he put his mind to it.  Or was that with the Force?  He didn't care about much of anything but darting his tongue in and out of Hux's hole, feeling the muscles contract and loosen around it, drawing out the fluid that Hux had shoved inside.  He rubbed his face greedily, trying to lick all traces of the slime from Hux's skin.  When Hux rocked forward, Kylo blew a breath against his hole and was satisfied when he saw the skin prickle into gooseflesh.  He had been hoping for more of a reaction, but Hux could be stingy in that way, when he wanted to be.  
  
He was beginning to grow frustrated.  He was on the edge.  He needed to come, desperately, with his tongue inside Hux.  It should have been enough.  Today, it wasn't.  The after-effect of what the Hutt had given him?  Was there such a thing?  Would Hux know about it?  Probably not true.  Hux complained often enough about short rounds.  Hux would know about it if it had existed, probably had researched it thoroughly, like the creep he was.  He would be slipping it into Kylo's food, if he could.  
  
"That's enough of that."  Hux said tightly, severely.  Kylo licked his lips.  Hux did sometimes seem to get angry in the middle, but Kylo couldn't tell right now if he was angry because he was getting turned on, or he was trying to hide the fact he was turned on by pretending to be angry.  Either way, the anger was strictly for show.  
  
Without further commentary, Hux shifted his position slightly back, taking his arm from Kylo's abdomen and bracing his weight against the back of the chair, using his other hand to guide his dick into Kylo's mouth.  Kylo took it eagerly, the fluid sliding off of Hux's dick and onto his lips, slowly making its way down the side of his face.  
  
Hux bent forward and used his free hand to run along the plain of Kylo's stomach, then grabbed Kylo's dick and pumped twice.  Kylo writhed with the sensation, and he could feel Hux's dick twitch in his mouth.  Then he moaned as Hux bent down and wrapped his own lips around Kylo's dick.  
  
They rutted into each other's mouths, the slick slime making a slapping noise against their lips.  Kylo was grunting around Hux's cock, which he could feel leaking into his mouth and down into his throat.  
  
Kylo was moaning very loudly, still not able to push himself over the edge, beginning to feel a pain creeping up into his balls and abdomen, an unpleasant pressure.  He tried to focus on the feel of the head of his dick in Hux's throat, and was surprised when Hux pulled himself up after only a few moments, rolling away and onto the floor on Kylo's bad side.  
  
"That's enough of that."  He said tightly, out of Kylo's line of sight.  Kylo was panting, sweating and slippery with the slime, and trying not to come from just the thought of getting his dick sucked with Hux's in his mouth.  They'd never tried that before.  He'd have to remember.  For later.  If he was able to think at all after this.  
  
He could hear Hux shifting next to him, standing up.  Before he had a chance to wonder what he could possibly want on his feet, Hux bent over and righted the chair.  It made Kylo dizzy for a moment, and he closed his eyes and put his head down, willing himself to be calmer.  He didn't want to talk, afraid that if he opened his mouth something regrettable would come out, and Hux would never let him forget.  It had happened a few times to him, but only once to Hux.    
  
Hux stood in front of him, scraping more of the slime from his waist, and Kylo could hear the regular sucking sounds of Hux's fingers in his ass again, this time more rapidly.  He knew if he opened his eyes, he would see Hux's dick bobbing in front of his face, and he wouldn't be able to touch it, or Hux's waist, or his face, or guide him down slowly, or-  
  
His eyes opened.  
  
"Hux, I can't use the Force."  He kept his eyes on Hux's dick, not trusting himself to gaze up into Hux's flushed face.  Sometimes he was still scowling for this part, but occasionally Kylo could read the lust on his face plain as day, and could always read it in his mind.  He could always feel how much Hux wanted it, with the Force, but Hux wasn't normally an expressive lover.  His face, his words, his actions, even the fact he refused to make noise infuriated Kylo, and he wouldn't have been able to stand it if he hadn't known how Hux only truly let himself go for Kylo, that he was giving him something and trusting him to know what it was and how to treat it.  It was the most precious thing he had, although he would rather die than say that out loud.  Even the thought made him burn in shame.  
  
Hux's movements slowed, then stopped.  "Of all the things you could say right now, that may be the one I wanted to hear the least.  I'm sick of that.  I know you can't use the Force."  
  
Kylo did open his eyes, looked up into Hux's angry face, which probably was genuine anger this time.  "I need... I need the Force to do this.  It helps me to know... what you like, when I'm inside you.  And-"  he turned his face away.  "I don't think I can come if I can't feel how much you like it."  
  
Hux sighed, and Kylo's face burned.  He wasn't sure who that was more embarrassing for.  Probably himself.    
  
"I think I'm going to start keeping ysalamiri in my room, if it keeps you from finishing so fast."  
  
Kylo turned back.  "What does that mean?"  
  
"Nothing."  he paused again.  "I know what I like.  I know you don't like to trust me, but you're going to have to just now."  
  
This was a little uncharacteristic, and Kylo was even more surprised when Hux stepped forward, grabbed Kylo's hips and pulled him across the seat into a slight slouch, dick pointed up.  He positioned himself over Kylo's dick and guided it into his ass slowly.  Kylo looked up into Hux's face, which was finally showing him something he wanted to see.  
  
"Do you really know me so little that you need the Force to tell you how much I like this?"  This was said quietly enough that Kylo almost wondered if it was the ghost of his Force powers, pulling it from Hux against his will.  Had Hux given such a thing willingly?  
  
Hux had leaned forward, hiding his face against Kylo's neck on his bad side, blinding Kylo to his expression.  He was rocking gently in Kylo's lap, his hands slipping back and forth against Kylo's biceps.  
  
He put his lips to Kylo's ear.  "I've done something I shouldn't have, so I'm going to give you something in return."  He began rocking more rapidly, moving himself up and down slightly.  "If you need to hear how much I like this in order to come, I'll tell you, just this once."  
  
He began to raise and lower himself more energetically in Kylo's lap, the slime making wet sucking noises and slapping warmly between them.  Kylo's hips bucked up to meet Hux in a stuttering rhythm that wasn't quite right, and would be better if he could use the Force.    
  
Instead, Hux's hand came down to still him, and he found a better rhythm, a better position.  His face stayed on Kylo's bad side, following it when Kylo sought it out, tried to find Hux's lips, his ear, his neck.  
  
"Just this once, I'll tell you how much I like those wicked hands of yours all over me."  His hand came back up to Kylo's shoulder.  His face turned away, and he spoke louder, his words choppy with the effort of his thrusts.  "That it's charming that you like sex so much that you can only stand to have me pleasure you for two minutes before you've had enough."  He leaned back, keeping a hand on Kylo's chin so he could angle Kylo's face away from his own as he continued to buck enthusiastically.  "That the rough fuck you give me before the bath is always my favorite one, and I've not grown bored with it over the years."  
  
Kylo came at the mention of the bath, feeling as if he was spilling a lifetime's worth of pleasure straight up into Hux.  Hux collapsed into his lap, panting, draping both arms loosely around Kylo's neck.  Kylo was leaning back in the chair, panting.  Hux rested his forehead just to the side of his neck, on Kylo's bad side.  He stroked his cheek upward along the slime trail of Kylo's neck, rubbing their cheeks together, his mouth working his way up to Kylo's ear again.  
  
One of Hux's hands left Kylo's neck, reached down to his still hard dick, began stroking slowly.  "That I rushed down here in a panic when nothing I said about this trap got through to you.  That I was sure, all the way over, that I hadn't planned well enough for this Hutt, and she would wind up with us both, and maybe it was for the best, that way."  
  
His arm tightened around Kylo's neck, and he buried his nose in Kylo's wet, slimy hair.  "That I didn't want her taking what was mine."  
  
With that, he spilled onto their chests.  He made no sound with his orgasm, but his body was wracked with small spasms, more so than usual.  He rested his forehead against Kylo's neck again, and stayed there, panting slightly and willing himself to catch his breath.  
  
Kylo looked down at himself, at the purple slime that still coated his skin, less thickly now, and at the barely-visible come, mostly masked by the slime.  He looked down at where Hux's thighs rested against his own, heavily freckled in contrast to the sparse moles that dotted his own pale flesh.  
  
He wished again for his hands.  He was never as good with words as Hux was, better with his hands.  Sometimes Kylo amused himself by thinking about the First Order like a two-man trap.  Hux lured systems in with honeyed words, diplomats, and beaurocracy, until they opened their borders to Kylo and his Knights and armies and weapons.    
  
He turned his head away from Hux.  
  
"That's what it's like with the Force, yes."  
  
Expecting a sarcastic rebuke in return, he was surprised when Hux remained silent.  He turned his head back around, and saw that Hux's face was still bright red under the layer of purple fluid that still covered them both.  
  
Kylo took advantage, buried his face as far as he could reach into Hux's neck, and kissed him gently.  
  
"Are... you all right?"  
  
Hux turned his head slightly away to exhale, then straightened, his face closed off by his arrogant expression once again.  
  
"Of course."  He reached up, pulled a large clump of viscera from Kylo's hair, then stood.  "I'll... need to see to the ships, of course.  Check in with the fleet, and all that.  I've been unexpectedly out of contact for a full day."  He looked around absently, his eyes resting on something behind the seat.  He stepped out of view, and Kylo heard the rustling of clothing again.    
  
As Hux got dressed, Kylo tested his bonds again, hoping that the slime had weakened them somewhat.  He was still wearing his boots and pants that went up to his knees, as well as one whole sleeve and the cuff of a second under his bonds.  The rope, unfortunately, was still holding, and didn't seem to have any give after being so thoroughly soaked and yanked on.  
  
He gave a small yelp when he felt himself going backwards in the chair again.  Hux set him down more gently, this time looking down sternly while still wearing the black pilot uniform, arms crossed across his chest, hair swept back and slicked with what was left of the slime.  
  
Kylo was annoyed.  "Hux, please, untie me.  This chair is hurting me."  Being slouched in it while Hux pounded his lap had hurt his back, though he wasn't willing to admit this out loud to Hux.  
  
Hux sighed again.  "What did I tell you?  I like you just as you are.  And I intend to punish you for running straight into a trap and wasting the Order's resources like this."  
  
Kylo jerked in the chair, hearing the metal scrape across the wood paneling in the floor.  "The Order's resources?  You're full of shit, you came down here yourself."  
  
"Am I not the most valuable resource the Order possesses?"  
  
Kylo smirked.  "Apparently not, if you came down here after me."  
  
Hux stepped over him, walking out of sight and across the room.  Panicking slightly, Kylo thumped the chair against the floor again.  
  
"Hux, I'm sorry!  Do you want me to apologize for that?  I don't care.  Like I said, I'll say whatever you want if you untie me."  
  
"No.  No, I don't think so.  I don't think I have the time right now."  This, absently, from across the room.  "I'll have to send someone else in to free you later."  
  
He was going to do it.  He was going to leave him tied in the chair, naked and by himself, because Kylo didn't listen to him.  "Is this... is this because of the TIE Fighters?"  
  
At one point, Kylo and Hux had had a disagreement about the size of an escort that Kylo was to take on a mission.  Hux had wanted him to take 6 TIE Fighters with him, Kylo hadn't wanted any.  Neither was willing to compromise.  Ultimately, Hux could command Phasma, who could command the Stormtroopers to get into the TIE Fighters and follow him.  Short of shooting them down, there wasn't anything Kylo could do to stop it.  So he had spent fifteen hours pulling the fuel cell wiring from all 2,000 TIE Fighters aboard the _Finalizer_.  None had been sent with him.  The fleet hadn't been back up to strength for three months, and Hux had spent even longer than that complaining daily about the expense and waste of First Order resources.  
  
"Do you think you deserve to be tied to a chair and left in a room for doing that?"  
  
Kylo didn't say anything in response.  He didn't really think that, had been right about the size of the escort, so all that pulled wiring had actually been Hux's fault.  But saying so right now wouldn't get him out of the chair.  He would wait.  
  
"I see."  Hux stepped back into his line of sight, a more malevolent look on his face.  "Maybe you'd agree that this is for the urselx, then?"  
  
Kylo turned his face away.  He hadn't wanted to go to a planet, and when Hux had sent him anyway, he had captured and kept an urselx in his unused personal quarters, starving and aggravating it for three days.  Then he had set it free in Hux's room when he left on a mission, after Hux had gone on shift.  Hux had stayed out of contact for the week Kylo was away, which was unusual, but hadn't said anything when Kylo had gotten back.  Had never said anything about the urselx.  It had been months.  Kylo wished he had, because he knew Hux's retaliation would be terrible.  
  
Kylo shifted uncomfortably in the chair, wanting to guide the conversation away from what he deserved.  "Come on!  You can't tell me you're going to do this, after all those nice things you said just now?"  
  
Hux turned back around and stepped back toward the door.  "Oh, that?  The Twi'lek used her... powers of persuasion on me, let's say, before she left.  She had me in quite a state."  
  
Kylo thought back dimly to the Twi'lek, re-assessing.  Perhaps she could be used as a Knight of Ren.  He wondered if she'd be willing to do that to Hux more regularly, and if she could do it without Hux knowing.  
  
"She said you promised.  What did you promise?"  
  
Kylo heard the door swish up.  "I promised that you would one day learn not to endanger your life in obvious traps that you know about ahead of time."  
  
With that, Hux flipped the lights off, and Kylo heard the door close behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps you'd like to follow me on Tumblr? [@vadianna](http://vadianna.tumblr.com)


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